Theory of The Big Bang
by ArtAddictedArchitect
Summary: A Bisexual, PartiallyAscended! Self Insert Howard Wolowitz crossover with Stargate. What do you do when you're a SI! trapped in a crossover universe? Goa'uld, Shadowy government organizations, the Lucian Alliance out to destroy the Earth with Howard and the gang trapped on the starship Destiny. The Destiny Of All Things is hidden in the Cosmic Microwave background.
1. Chapter 1

Ever have a lucid dream and halfway through realizing that its reality? That's how I ended up staring into a mirror with a different face showing in the reflection. On a hospital bed in California told i've been in a coma.

Let me backup for a moment.

The last thing I remember being awake about was falling. Maybe not falling persay, but the image and reflection of sun shining on water growing ever closer and closer. Seeing the horizon fall closer and closer, wind whipping limbs like a marionette and the roaring of dragons. Pain. Adrenaline building as the concrete hard surface zoomed closer. A glint of light.

The first thing I remember dreaming is hitting and the water, and going through. Hitting the water and all the pain vanishing. Falling through the Shimmer of light on the surface as easily as Sirius Black in the department of mysteries veil. Shot through a rapid tunel, streaks of light unlike snow going 70 miles a hour on a highway making up the walls. Rapid turns and twists jostling my limbs. The motes of light making up the tunnel sparkling and flashing. Pure information being transferred to my mind.

Memories.

Memories that aren't mine.

A young boy being raised playing with a model rocket.

Practicing magic tricks. Smelling lacktas being cooked. A home, slowly becoming more and more hostile. Alcohol introduced and being snuck in corners. Fights. Yelling. Building small robots in a room away from the anger and noise. A sunlit shadow of a man going out the front door one day. The man never came back.

Waiting at the door for days, weeks. Watching mom get steadily more depressed and bigger as time went on. Overbearing behaviour. Mathematics. The sudden realization that some of the shapers outside of the information walls were star constellations.

Pain. Feeling my mind stretch in more ways than I could mathematically quantify, and the next second being able to intuitively understand. Watching hypercubes and multidimensional shapes oscillating through dimensions. Visualizing Gravity. The sudden lurching knowledge that whatever was happening was permanent and here to stay. Imagine holding a photo of a I Spy book and simultaneously be aware of everything on the page.

As if holding a dvd could let you experience the movie in totality. And then getting thousands of these frames and play them cinema style with eight other set ups playing simultaneously and then you'd began to get a idea of the idea of what the experience felt.

Looking down to see my hands, instead seeing shapes of light with fractals. Zooming in on the fractals again and again falling through this tunnel like Stephen Strange.

I imagine this is would taking NZT and Acid at the same time would do to you. Except of course NZT is fictional.

Don't know how long I stayed in that tunnel. Seconds may as well have been months with how densely the information bombardment was happening. Until the end was in sight.

A solid wall of light coming at supersonic speeds closer. Light Years away and simultaneously close enough to reach out and touch.Overwhelmed with memories pouring into both my conscious and unconscious mind at this point I almost dismissed the last memory until a face stood out.

A pale white boy with a beetles haircut, face scrunched in panic. A frozen bolt of lightning heading for the engine block , frozen in midair. The light illuminating bright gaudy tight clothes.

And with a Boom time speed up, the car catching fire and exploding. Being thrown out the windshield, suspended in the air looking back- and seeing that the car was entirely aflame. Burning with the passenger engulfed.

With a sudden jerk I woke up. A name on my mind. Howard Wolowitz.

Suddenly I froze.

_What the hell._

_Don't freak out in a hospital bed. _Pure panic and adrenaline flooded my system, of was it Howards system at this point? Was I inhabiting his body or was this all a hallucination?

_I have to pretend to be Howard and not say anything abnormal._

Saying that im inhabiting the body of a fictional TV show character was an easy way to get placed into psychiatric lockdown.

Better to play the role enough to be released and then research everything once im out of the hospital.

I have to assume that everything is real until proven otherwise.

"Mr. Wolowitz, Hi my names Dr. Spencer. Were going to run a couple of test, figure out how you're doing" A blond middle aged woman announced.

"Im the leading doctor this shift tonight and I like to get to know the new patients. You haven't been under long, we've had to keep you under for 3 days while the brain swelling went down."

"Ah okay. Im very confused right now. Last thing I remember is being thrown out of the car. How's my mom? Are her injuries bad?"

Dr. Spencer walked forward a bit, pulled out a chair and sat down.

It's never good when the doctors sit down to tell you news.

"Im sorry to inform you this, but she died."

The rest of the hospital stay went back quickly. They kept me in isolation for 3 more days hooked up to all sorts of monitors and not letting guests visit just to make sure all the drugs were out of my system. I also requested no visitors. It gave me time to think and plan.

Howards memories were all there and available now. Whatever had happened during that psychedelic trip had worn off by now. It was probably a side effect of the medication. Or through whatever magic had shoved me into a fictional reality.

I wasn't some super genius. Nope, just a normal guy. Albeit with plenty of intuitive knowledge of robotics, fiction, and magic tricks.

Staying in a bed watching tv naturally lead to a lot of downtime for thinking. It was sometime before the series started which was a relief. The show from what I remember played hardball with dates, never mentioning things directly. _Probably in a effort not to make things dated. _As much as I can appreciate what the writers did, it did me no good.

For all intents and purposes I was Howard now. Laying in bed for days with nothing changing meant whatever happened was there to stay. I'd have to live with the fallout of previous Howard's behavior.

Howard- The guy who build a six breasted robot and was a constant stakerish creeper. Hopefully the damage control I'd have to play not be enormous.

Fortunately other sources were more precise.

According to Fox News It was August 30th 2005.

Fox News was going on about the war in the Middle East and how president Bush was making a effort to help with the victims of the Katrina hurricane. The south was hit particularly hard.

_Doesn't Sheldon's mom live in Texas? _I'll have to ask about that later when im out.

This world was real. Complex. For all I know a carbon copy of the reality I came from. Maybe the tv show was just the dreams of reality bleeding over in dreams. The multiverse and all that. It got me thinking...

The real Howard was somewhat of a horny man child. He would not have coped well with the death of his Maa. I could take over his place in life without feeling bad, any different behaviour could be explained as having to grow up.

With how the accident was described, the real Howard may have very well died in the ICU. I could play my cards right and be safe, have a stable life while still do some astonishing things.

Being inserted into a sitcom by some renegade Random Omnipotent Being sure beats being thrown into the Game of Throne world, or Harry Potter where mindrape wasn't a uncommon occurance.

It's not like this was animorphs where if I acted differently id be accused of being under Yeerk influence. I could act different with no repercussions. Clarity flooded with relief sagged my tense shoulders. Everything would be fine. Somehow.

The social worker came and talked to me in between periods of sleep with paperwork.

Mrs. Wolowitz had left a will. The house and a life insurance policy was left to my name. Id have to figure out what to do later with the house, and as the new Howard. _Still, It feels bad to take over and renovate everything_.

I'd do it anyway. The memories weren't without emotional attachment. Getting rid of the blaring reminders of Debbie Wolowitz and making everything inside drastically different would be better for my mental health.

It's one thing to obsess over how cool it would be to live on a set, and another to be there 24/7. As much as I'd want to visit the set of the enterprise, living there would be terrifying.

That's what this house would become. A little fortress of solitude for introverted nights in. _Doesn't hurt that houses in California are expensive_.I thought. _Most of the inheritance would be wasted on a move to a new house_.

But now a bigger problem was on the horizon. Rajesh Koothrappali was coming to visit in a hour and I had no reason to avoid pushing the visits back anymore.

'knock knock'

"Howard?"

_Of course Raj would be here early. "_Come in!" Might as well wing it. It's not like could plan everything out anyway.

Raj walked into the room. "How are you holding up buddy?" He said, finding the visitors chair and pulling it out.

I pursed my lips, "Oh you know, as well as I can given the circumstances. How are you doing? You look like crap."

Raj had bags under his eyes and his clothes looked rumpled. Like he'd slept in the waiting room. Which knowing the levels of bromance- totally possible.

"I'm doing alright. You should see Leonard. He's been dealing with Sheldon having his schedule broken."

Chuckling Raj added "if you thought he was crazy before it's nothing like he is now."

I looked at Raj and it must have gotten to him. "What? Is there something on my face? There was this kid in the waiting room who kept throwing stickers onto everythi--"

"Have you slept here?" I interrupted.

"Only when I can get away with it." Exhaling and stretching Raj mumbled. "The've kicked me out the last two days but the hospital isn't too far away from home so its not too bad of a drive." Raj stretched out leaning back on the hospital chair.

"Raj? Do me a favor."

"Anything Howard. You name it and ive got it."

"Go home. Get some sleep. They wont let me drive when im discharged so ill need someone to take me home."

"Are you sure about that? I mean, i've prepared some space in my apartment and its closer to the hospital. I don't want you going home alone"

Exhaling slowly I replied "You're probably right but I need to see the house and how it is without Ma. Ive been gone for a few days already so the fridge probably needs to be cleaned out and I need to figure out what to do."

"Okay. Are you sure you don't need any help?" Raj leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Eyebrows furrowed, eyes flickering over the myriad of half healed bruises covering my body. Care and concern radiating off him.

"I'm fine Raj. I can't drive for two weeks and I'll need some help once I'm home, but I'm good now."

"I'll get the guys together. Who knows, maybe Sheldon's asinine organizational habits can finally come in handy."

"Yeah, you might be right. We can just let him loose with some cardboard boxes and packaging tape. Want to bet he'd have everything hyper organized in a week?"

"A week?" Raj snorted standing up. " I'd give him a day, he's such a neurotic mess right now. He barely ate his Thai food yesterday."

"Picture that. Sheldon not eating his Monday Thai. The worlds coming to a end." I said grinning.

"Bad joke man. It has been like the end of our world. Things haven't been so good without you." Raj was at the door ready to leave but grinning nonetheless.

"Anyway you look so much worse that I do. Get some rest okay? You should be discharged tomorrow. I have to work but Leonard and Sheldon should be able to take you home."

It was true. While no bones were broken, my skull had a fracture extending through the frontal bone, a sore neck and a fractured left pinkie.

Everything hurt. Sleep would be good. The next couple days would be busy. With my thoughts somewhat at ease, I rolled over and pulled the blanket higher. I drifted off to sleep uncomfortably.

_First thing is getting a haircut and a outfit change. No one will take me seriously looking like a fluorescent Ringo Star._


	2. Chapter 2

I woke up the next morning later than anticipated .

Oof. Oww. My neck is… not as sore actually. Strange. How long was I out for? Turning on the tv I saw the readout said 11 in the morning. Something like 14 hours then. Well, at least this gives me some time to prepare before discharge.

The nurses had brought in a bag of effects from whatever they've found at the accident sometime while I've been asleep. It was lying on one of the chairs on the far side of the room.

Well I can see cords from here. Maybe there's a cellphone.

With a groan I hoisted myself up and sat to adjust for dizziness. Which didn't come. Weird. It's almost like I possessed some sort of low grade healing factor. Could have had Wolverine healing but at best this is somewhere between Captain America and Spider-Man without the super strength. Better than average but not superhuman. Guess that's what the weird psychedelic trip did.

Ah well. At least I'm alive. And healed slow enough not to freak out the hospital staff. Imagine if they saw someone super healing. I'd be abducted and sent to some scientific lab so fast. The recovery should be shorter at least.

Rooting around I found a pair of cut off skinny jeans, a dickie shirt, some keys, a duct tape wallet and a cell phone with charger.

A Motorola Droid.

I haven't seen one of these In a decade at least.

It looked like it's had better days. Scratches covered the once smooth metal surface and the outer screen was cracked. Well, here goes nothing. Plugging the charger into the wall I put the cord in the phone and waited.

**~Droiiiid~**

Huh, what do you know.

It works. Of course, now I'd need to relearn how to text using T9, but that wouldn't have to be for too long. Doesn't the blackberry come out sometime in the next year or two? Definitely on the list of things to have. I've spent years with a iPhone before, and now I'm in the past with the days of dial up internet and terrible cell phone service.

Shit.

Still….

This is as close as you'd ever get to time traveling.

Realistically if you could ever time travel any microbes would come with you and start plagues. Back in time and you bring a plague. Forward and you'd die from hyper evolved bacteria and viruses.

Huh, I wonder if bringing up this line of inquiry would ruin Doctor Who for Sheldon?

I pulled the phone closer and sat back on the bed. Opening up the messages I saw…. that no one had texted. Of course. Howard was a pretty offputting and solidary guy. My free arm rubbed a hand through my stubble and hair.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

Looking through the contacts I started texting Leonard. Hey, how r u?

Holding the phone I waited for a reply… and kept waiting. Hmm.. guess he's busy. Turning the volume on loud and setting the phone on the adjustable stand by the bed it vibrated and dinged in my hand.

**Bzzzztt**

Good. Sheldon's been driving me crazy but I'm sure that will pass 's hold up in his office completely in work recently. I'm sorry to hear about your mom. We will be by later toda()

Y to pick you up after work. Sometime around 5ish? (2/2)

Thnx. Dat works

Raj told me you fractured some fingers. Does typing hurt? Think you'll be able to come back to work fine? I talked to the head of the physics department and they've cut you a bi()

T of a break while you're hospitalized. They almost brought Anderson back.(2/2)

Yup. Call later lunch. Taking nap

Wow. I haven't T9'd since middle school. It was exhausting. This was going to take some getting used to. Old school phones, slow internet, a lack of good video games…

And Anderson? Another engineer, from the pharmaceutical department my memory's supplied. I don't remember any other engineers on the show. Maybe what I saw on TV was just a reflection of another reality. This one was real, complex, with very deep webs of interest and interpersonal relationships saturating it. The people around me weren't one dimensional characters, but rich multifaceted individuals. I'd have to remember to not operate on previous assumptions.

If only I could remember which company's did good in the stock market. Tough luck. I was pants at paying attention to the geopolitical climate back in my home reality. In the late two thousand teens stuff had deteriorated so badly I'm surprised nuclear war didn't break out.

Or maybe it did and that's why I'm here….

Nonetheless I texted Leonard can u bring cloths 2? Mine burnt before drifted off to nap, phone by the bed.

When I woke up saw that it was 2:37 pm. The phone was beeping next to my ear. Guess I slept pass their call. Might as well see if there's any voicemails.

**De-deep**

"Hey Howard, guessing you fell asleep. We told Sheldon that you're awake and it's the happiest I've seen him in a- yes Raj, I'm going to tell him we're stopping by the apartment to get clothes.

Okay. Okay—- here why don't you just talk to him."

Rustling sounds for a moment as the phone was being passed.

"Hey Howard. I feel bad for forgetting to grab your keys to get some clothes for you but I feel creepy going there by myself. Yes Sheldon?

Oh good lord, give me that.

Howard it's me. We're going to stop by the apartment and grab you a Togo bag. Raj keeps insisting to want to get you some of his clothes but as he's taller than you it would be frankly embarrassing. And since the hospital is too far away from your house it's simply more efficient to grab Leonard's clothes and be over before rush hour. Be prepared for us and we can be in the road before traffic gets bad."

**Bee-beep**

**End of messages.**

Aaaaaallllllriggghhtyy then. Typical Sheldon.

I'm going to convince him to get psychological testing someday. His signs scream autistic. Maybe if he gets a diagnosis it can help somehow.

Well. Time to nap again before everyone comes.

After a quick nap I woke up a hour later.

Mmm… 4:45

Plenty of time to ready myself mentally.

How should I act around Sheldon and Leonard?

With Raj I could fall back onto casual banter. Sheldon would be harder to trick. At least Debbie is dead, imagine living with Howard's mom. I'd make me want to kill myself after a while.

In the meantime I occupied my time by packing personal effects. Hospital socks, wallet, phone, keys. Yup. Basically all that's left to do is wait.

Before I knew it knocking startled me. I'd zoned out and not realized it.

**Knock knock knock** Howard.

**Knock knock knock** Howard.

**Knock** **knock** **knock** Howard.

"Come In Sheldon!"

Sheldon almost bolted into the room, a haggard Leonard trudged into the room behind him. "Heeeey Howard. How are you doing?"

"Can we not talk about that right now Leonard? I'm going to cope with it later, but If I think about it now I'll have a breakdown."

"Capital idea Howard." Sheldon exclaimed pacing around the room. "The Vulcans focused on logic especially in the face of hazardous conditions. I for one think what you're doing is the perfect decision."

"Mmkay" Leonard mumbled. "I'll be right back. Going to get this ticket validated. Parking is expensive."

I exhaled slowly."Thanks. I don't think I can walk that far yet without help."

"Very well" Sheldon nodded. "How can we be of assistance?"

"Help me carry some stuff and get to the car."

Sheldon's eyebrows rose. "That's ridiculous, I'm a physicist, not a lackey. Leonard is coming with a wheelchair. We can just hang it on the handles."

"Look at you." I chuckled. "Breaking safety procedures."

"I'm uncomfortable with it, but the other option would be putting a bag of things on your lap. And frankly that is ridiculous." Sheldon stubbornly announced. "You're going to be wearing the seatbelt and we're going to head slowly through the hallways. If we leave this ward soon you can pretend to be a model train and we'll be at the car in a jiffy."

I scrunched my face giving Sheldon a 'bitch really' look.

"A model train?"

"Of course. Model trains are the best. They are both informative and miniature for travel sized convenience."

Leonard rolled into the room with a wheelchair. It was black, and its front stabilizer wheel wobbled.

"Oh come on Leonard." Sheldon walked closer inspecting the chair. " Surely you could have picked a better chair. This wheel appears to oscillate at a drastic angle laterally indifferent from forward propulsion . You might as well have got a Mario Kart gokart after it's hit a banana peel."

Leonard turned annoyed at Sheldon and adjusted him glass.

"It was either this or the one which brake kept getting stuck. The good wheelchair was taken by the family in room 304. What did you want me to do?"

"I wanted you to be faster and get that wheelchair, but I guess this will have to suffice."

_Oof. Sheldon's more obnoxious in person that I imagined._

"Here Howard." Leonard dropped a bag on the bed. " I'm a quarter of a inch taller but these clothes should fit. There's no skinny jeans though. Just regular pants and a T-shirt."

"That's fine. Honestly I've been thinking about fazing them out. The paramedics had to use safety scissors to get the pair I was wearing off of me due to impact swell."

"Really?" Sheldon leaned back. "Interesting."

"What's interesting Sheldon?" Leonard asked turning, one hand pushing the wheelchair into the corner of the room and the other helping me stand up.

"Thanks" I murmured. "My bags on the nightstand. That and the separate folder of paperwork are all I'm taking by the way."

"No problem. The pants might be kinda loose but since we had no idea of how bad your swelling and difficulty walking would be they'll have to do."

"It's interesting that this was the catalyst for Howard has decided to alter his wardrobe, and not say the extremely tight crotch killing any sperm motility."

"Sheldon!" Leonard turned back into the room after passing me a bag of clothes."We don't say that sort of thing."

I stepped into the small side bathroom and started poking through the bag Leonard handed me. A pair of khaki slacks, a bit too long. Two pairs of socks, a blue button up shirt, and a comb in its packaging. I looked at it. When was the last time I'd showered?

Wetting the comb I ran it through the mop that could be considered my hair. With some difficulty using the brace bars and leaning against the sink I got un-dressed and the first good look at what this body looked like.

My first thought were short, and not as hairy as anticipated . Large bruises covered my ribs and shoulder joints, skinny limbs, no real visible muscle mass. Average. Nothing to write home about.

_With all Howard's bragged about the Jewish people what else did I expect._

Grabbing onto the sink again I dressed. Not bad. Looking in the mirror. Now I actually look like a beetle instead of a highlighter from the 70's.

_Time to get out of the hospital._


	3. Chapter 3

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**Space/Time Coordinates: _(August 31st 2005 [6:45 pm] - Pasadena California)_**

**Leonard's car driving to the wolowitz house. Leonard is Driving, Sheldon is in the passenger seat and Howard is in the middle rear.**

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"So do you have any superpowers?"

"Sheldon…not when I'm driving. Actually not at all!"

"No it's fine Leonard, let him talk. Superpowers?"

"You've fulfilled two of the three requirems for being a superhero. I draw particular distinctions with the Flash. You've been hit by lightning while doused in chemicals from the car. Standard non exotic chemical of course, but one has to make allowances given the situation."

"Okay, know what I'm curious too" Leonard turned and glanced at Sheldon. "What's the second?"

"Eyes on the road!"

The car swerved as Leonard tried to avoid a pothole. With a lurching thud the car hit it anyway.

Sheldon scowled at Leonard with a sour glance before turning back to Howard.

"While your mom has recently passed in the same accident that could be interpreted as your origin story being the second point, it hasn't been in a way to point blame for a antagonist thus giving you opposition for a training arc. The flash had reverse flash. Batman's parents were killed by rampant crime, thus leading him to pursue a life of revenge. Even the ninja turtles master Splinter sought revenge for the murdering of his owner."

"Okay Sheldon." I remarked. "You know superhero's aren't actually real right."

"Dear lord, I know that Howard." Sheldon exclaimed rolling his eyes. "Putting disbelief aside momentarily, one can earn to ponder however."

It's true that something weird was going on. Naturally I wouldn't vocalize it for fear of being not taken seriously, or worse- taken seriously and turned into a lab experiment. "Tell you what Sheldon- if I start developing super speed you'll be the first to know."

"Thanks Howard." Point made, Sheldon turned back in his car seat facing forward. "See Leonard, Howard doesn't think my questioning is asinine."

"I didn't say it was asinine, just that it's rude to ask about things and you're making a ass of yourself."

"Is that what you said? I'll admit I tuned you out at that point. Was that when you were arguing about the wheelchair with that woman?"

"No it was when we were trying to find a parking spot." Leonard sighed exasperatedly.

_Did they always fight this way?_

I should stop them.

"It's fine." I spoke up, leaning into the car seat and stretching out my legs." We're all stressed out from what's going on."

Sheldon and Leonard peered at me through the rearview mirror. "That's very mature of you. I've got to say, you're acting different than I would have expected."

"Things change Leonard."

_If only they knew how much._

"Let's just finish the drive silently."

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**Space/Time Coordinates: _(August 31st 2005 [7:15 pm] - Pasadena California)_**

**Leonard's parked car in the wolowitz house driveway.**

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The car stood stationery lights off. It was unbearably warm and more humid than usual. Leonard fiddled with his keys still in the ignition. Sheldon was sitting quietly, rubbing one hand on the door handle tugging it anxiously.

We sat in the backseat peering through the windshield at the two story house.

"Looks like the lights burnt out."

"Yeah. Looks that way."

"Aren't we going to get out-" Sheldon said getting out of the car- "and look at what needs to be done?"

Sheldon was the first out the car, purposefully striding towards the front door. Leonard was trugging behind him yelling "Wait up Sheldon! Howard has the keys."

The house was so different than I remembered it. Quiet. Where before any slight noise would cause yelling by a overbearing jewish mother the house now sat silent. Like a Halloween prop. Empty and quiet as the grave.

"Just a minute here guys it's-" Fishing around in my pocket, coins from my wallet jangling- "right here! There's the sucker."

"Well. Here goes."

Slowly the door opened and we all piled in one by one.

My first thoughts were the house smelled terrible. Years of living with a Mother who hoarded food probably meant a lot of things were spoiled.

"How are you feeling?" Leonard turned towards me with concern. Sheldon started pacing through the living room into the kitchen muttering under his breath of needed extra strength trash bags for picking up all the knick knacks. "We can leave right now if you want to."

"Its fine. A lot of this stuff is going to have to be thrown away or donated. Im keeping the house mind you, but I don't want this to be a shrine for Betty."

In a rare moment of compassion Sheldon spoke up. "That's a capital idea Howard. You know, when my father died my mother hoarded his stuff. Despite all the fighting that they had done until that point it broke her a little bit. The only way I was able to make myself useful was categorizing and itemising all of his stuff to sell. I was alone. You however are not alone. You have your friends to help you."

"All of us will help you" Leonard spoke up.

A lump caught itself in my throat. "Sheldon….. Leonard….I don't know what to say guys."

"Yoooou can say where your comics are so I can organize them all." Sheldon coyly remarked. "I want to organize those first before any moving people come and the special editions get ruined."

I snorted, partly from simultaneous disbelief and relief.

"They're upstairs." I mentioned walking over to the couch. "My robotics and some tools are there too." With a loud groan of springs abused past their limit I folded into the old living room seat. "I'll just sit here and plan out what I want done with the place."

Sheldon had already bounded up the stairs exclaiming- "Fantastic Four rare edition version, you are mine!" Leonard meandered over and with a waterbed like lurch, fell into the couch close to me. His eyes were tired with bags extending onto his cheeks. With one hand he took off his glasses, and the other rubbed at his face.

"Just so you know we're about to head back to the apartment in a bit." Leonard continued rubbing his eyes and face in a effort to stay awake. " Sheldon gets off if his schedules interrupted and I need to make sure he goes to bed soon."

"Lets just let him play with the comics and action figures upstairs while I make us a pot of coffee."

"Thanks."

I walked over to the kitchen door and flicked on the lights. There was still food in the sink, some dishes that needed to be washed which had residue. Opening the overstuffed pantry, adjusting my hand for a moment, and with a plasticy sound I grabbed a container of coffee and went over to get a fresh pot brewing.

Ten minutes later I walked out with two steaming mugs. Steam wafting from the cups filled the air with a smell of rich caramel. Wordlessly I passed a mug to Leonard and sat back down on the couch. Noises could be heard from upstairs as Sheldon was rooting through various comics and yelling delightedly upon finding a rare issue.

"So we're heading back to the apartment?"

Leonard nodded mutely, taking a sip of coffee and sighing in relief. "Yeah. You need to be watched for the next couple of days. Trauma signs and all that." He waved a hand around in the air. "Hope you're fine sleeping on the couch for a while, we don't really have a spare bedroom."

"No, that's fine. Honestly it gives me time to get a construction crew in here and renovate the whole place."

"Raj will be over when we go to work tomorrow morning to watch over you." Leonard gulped a few mouthfuls of coffee. "Any idea what you're going to do with the place?"

"I'm thinking to tear out the dining room and make most of the house have open floor planning. Then maybe renovating the stairs and just gutting the upstairs completely. I want it to look completely different once its done."

"Mmmmkay. Sounds like a plan. Lets go get Sheldon and head back home. We made a appointment months ago for the high IQ sperm bank tomorrow and it was a pain scheduling. We'll be home later tomorrow."

I sat there slightly stunned for a moment. Wasn't that the beginning of the pilot? Maybe some new clothes can make me presentable for meeting Penny.

Leonard was over by the railing at the base of the stairs. "Sheldon! We're leaving soon!"

"Can't we stay a bit longer?" Sheldon excitedly waved a comic in the air. "Look! I found action comics issue #7! Its the second time superman ever appears!"

"It will be here when we get back," Leonard raised his voice slightly, "now come on! Lets go!"

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**Space/Time Coordinates: _(September 1st 2005 [5:30 am] - Pasadena California)_ Sheldon And Leonard's apartment.**

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It was a uncomfortable night sleeping on the couch. I kept tossing and turning thinking about what to do with the house, and my first time seeing Penny. Most people move in on the first of the month right? The verdict was still out if this was the canon universe or not. But there was simply no way to know.

Halfway through the night I couldn't stand the restless energy anymore, and got on the laptop I brought with me from the Wolowitz household. Googling through the night brought me the name of a good remodeling company that id use some money on to make the house livable. A hair cuttery less than a mile away, and more proof that I was in another universe.

Imagine that- in this universes version of Friends, Joey and Phoebe get married. Always thought they would have made a cute couple.

Tiredness eventually sunk in, and around 4 in the morning after shutting down the laptop I went to bed.

Only to be woken up by Sheldon rustling in his cereal box.

"Morning Howard." Sheldon poured milk in his bowl and with a flourish, closed the cap putting the jug back in the fridge. "Could you be a dear and move? That's my spot."

WIth a groan I pushed myself up, swinging my legs off the couch blanket precariously half falling onto the floor. I knew how sheldon was with his spot. "Here you go."

A distant flush and the sound of hands being washed announced the arrival of Leonard.

"Raj should be here at seven. Think you'll be okay for a hour?"

"Definitely guys dont worry. Raj can help me out a lot today, im planning on making a few calls around for construction companies, a long term storage facility for moms stuff while the renovations happen, and getting a haircut later today."

"Sounds like a busy day. Make sure you don't push yourself alright?"

WIth lots of bustling in a well choreographed dance Sheldon and Leonard prepped themselves and were out the door.

I made a bowl of cereal and started leafing through a few history books Leonard had around. Halfway through picking apart the history of ancient Egypt Raj knocked on the door.

"Come In!"

Raj walked through the door coffee cup in hand looking tired. "Mind if I nap for a bit before we do stuff?"

" Yeah no problem Raj. Places won't really be open for another couple of hours." I lifted the history book showing Raj the cover. "And I've got something to read so there's that."

Placing the coffee cup on the counter, Raj turned around and flipped onto the couch. Fumbling with his phone he set a alarm for later. I watched him adjust and get comfortable before falling into a deep sleep.

Adjusting myself on the high chair in the kitchen I set a kettle to boil and returned back to reading.

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**A **couple** hours later**

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After a through morning of phone calls Raj woke up eventually. Grunting and stretching he mumbled "it's noon already?" Stretching and overreaching backwards," you could have woken me at ten" Raj yawned.

"Ehhh, figures you needed the sleep." I said passing a mug of black tea over.

Raj accepted the mug with one hand rubbing his face with the other. "Too true, I'm going to be in the observatory crunching data for the next couple of days."

"I'll be ready to go in a bit. Let me just get myself together."

We got ourselves together and stepped out of the apartment. "Huh, looks like someone's moving in." A couple people in a brown uniform were walking into the room cursing about the lack of a elevator.

"I just hope it's not another transvestite." Raj shivered. "Nothing against the previous one, but that skin condition." Grimacing, "like, use some moisturizer."

"Mmm… got a point there."I mentioned nodding. "Let's get out of here before the stairwell becomes crammed with movers."

We barely squeezed our way out. A U-haul truck was parked outside the building.

"Looks like it should be here all day."

" Hopefully they'll be done when we come back-" I checked the time on my phone-" so what kind of haircut do you think I should get?"

Bantering about different hairstyles we got into Raj's car and headed out

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**Space/Time Coordinates: _(September 1st 2005 [5:00pm] - Pasadena California)_ Sheldon And Leonard's apartment building. Howard and Raj are walking upstairs.**

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"Ugh that was a busy day" I mentioned to Raj trekking upstairs decked out in a new outfit. Gone we're the skinny jeans and low fit V-neck shirts of the Howard past. I was wearing a new pair of sneakers, green cargo pants and a loose but not overtly so black T-shirt with no turtleneck dickie. We were carrying a few Walmart bags with clothes that had my new outfits.

"I know but look at you now!" Excitedly Raj remarked. "That haircut looks great on you. It really brings out your eyes."

"Thanks Raj. The breeze on my neck feels different but I love the look." My hair was shorter in the back, and swooped in the front with a neat but intentionally ruffled part. It was probably the first time my forehead had seen sunlight in years. "Plus look at it! Should be low maintenance."

"For sure dude, for sure."

We walked a bit further up the stairs in silence. Just the regular comfortable thud of feet. Rounding the corner with one floor left to go noises started to come into focus. The shifting of a cardboard box, the peel of tape being ripped off, and china shifted.

"Must be the new neighbor." Raj shifted a Walmart bag from one hand to the other. "I hope he's not a smoker."

"—-where are the shower things, where are they-" A feminine voice muttered while the shifting sounds grew louder-"I swear they're here somewhere."

Raj glances at me worriedly. A panicked expression was on his face with pursed lips.

"Don't worry, I'll do the talking buddy." Reassuringly I spoke. "We'll figure out how to get you to speak to women someday."

Stepping on the final stair we turned around the corner. Raj darted towards the apartment door but I grabbed his arm before he got far.

"Come on, let's go introduce ourselves." I said hissing under my breath. "We're over here a lot and maybe you can view this as desensitization therapy."

"I don't want to," Raj whispered in my ear, "besides can't we do this later. Like after Sheldon and Leonard have made introductions?"

At that moment a young blond woman looked up and saw us. She was wearing a tank top and a pair of low cut booty shorts. "Oh, Hi!"

Changing focus from looking at Raj I turned to Penny. "Hi." Happily I spoke up. "This is Rajesh Koothrappali, he goes by Raj and has selective mutism."

"Hey Raj," she said warmly, "you can call me Penny."

Raj just alternating looked at me and Penny in mild horror.

I looked at him with amusement. Turning to Penny; "Hehas a problem talking to attractive women. But he can nod or shake his head, so you can play 20 questions to communicate."

"Awww." Her eyebrows scrunched up. "Like at at, at all?"

Turning to Raj I let go of his shoulder with a reassuring pat. "Come on you got this buddy."

Raj frighteningly looked at the floor. Then the wall scone by the elevator, finally with great difficulty looking at Penny's face. Hesitantly he noodded quickly before looking back at the floor.

"Good job!" I leaned my shoulder into him giving it a solid bump. Raj smiles shyly and lifted one foot to rub it against his leg.

"By the way." Turning back to Penny. " I don't believe I've introduced myself." Shifting the clothes bag to my left hand, I stuck the right out for a handshake.

"Wolowitz. Howard Wolowitz. Pleased to make your acquaintance."


	4. Chapter 4

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**Space/Time Coordinates:** _**(September 1st 2005 [3:50pm] - Pasadena California)**_ **The high IQ sperm bank.**

**Sheldon and Leonard are walking in the corridor, close to the office.**

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"So if a photon is directed through a plane with two slits in it and either slit is observed it will not go through both slits." Sheldon spoke up. He and Leonard were walking side by side.

"If it's unobserved it will, however, if it's observed after it's left the plane but before it hits its target, it will not have gone through both slits."

"Agreed, what's your point?" Leonard nodded, opening the office door.

Sheldon stopped and looked at Leonard like a teacher at a child not getting a simple addition problem. "There is no point," He stated,"I Just think it's a good idea for a tee-shirt."

Walking through the waiting room Leonard and Sheldon came to the front desk. The receptionist was engrossed in a crossword puzzle. Leonard and Sheldon looked at each other. Sheldon quirked his head sideways, as if to say 'you ask her'.

Clearing his throat Leonard asked "Excuse me?"

Completely dismissive the receptionist said, "Hang on." Still looking down at her newspaper.

Leonard leaned over the desk, reading the paper upside down. Seeing a couple empty spaces, and nervous being in a uncomfortable situation to begin with, he spoke the answers aloud.

"One across is Aegean, eight down is Nabakov, twenty-six across is MCM, fourteen down is… move your finger… phylum, which makes fourteen across Port-au-Prince. See, Papa Doc's capital idea, that's Port-au-Prince. Haiti."

The Receptionist glared at Leonard. Looking down at her crossword to verify the answers were right, she returned to glaring. "Can I help you?"

"Yes." Leonard realized he might have overstepped a boundary. "Um, is this the High IQ sperm bank?"

Annoyed the receptionist enunciated, "If you have to ask, maybe you shouldn't be here."

Sheldon turned to Leonard. "I think this is the place."

"Fill these out." She slid two pre-prepared clipboards across the low countertop desk.

"Thank-you." Leonard picked up both clipboard passing one to Sheldon. "We'll be right back."

"Oh, take your time. I'll just finish my crossword puzzle." She said looking down at her newspaper. "Oh wait."

They sit and begin to fill in forms. Both writing at a similar pace, after the first section Sheldon slowed down.

"Leonard, I don't think I can do this."

"What, are you kidding? You're a semi-pro."

"No." Sheldon stated. "We are committing genetic fraud. There's no guarantee that our sperm is going to generate high IQ offspring, think about that. I have a sister with the same basic DNA mix who hostesses at Fuddruckers."

"Sheldon, this was your idea. A little extra money to get fractional T1 bandwidth in the apartment."

"I know," Sheldon looked to the side, "and I do yearn for faster downloads, but there's some poor woman is going to pin her hopes on my sperm, what if she winds up with a toddler who doesn't know if he should use an integral or a differential to solve the area under a curve."

"I'm sure she'll still love him."

"I wouldn't."

"Well,"Leonard looked unsure, "what do you want to do?"

"I want to leave."

A moment's pause. "Okay."

They say still for another moment. Then stage whispering Sheldon hissed, "What's the protocol for leaving?"

"I Don't know," Leonard said, speaking up a little louder, "I've never reneged on a proffer of sperm before."

They both looked around the empty waiting room. The receptionist had moved on from the crosswords to a sudoku puzzle. Sheldon glanced at the receptionist and seeing that she was completely engrossed said, "Let's try just walking out."

Leonard looked around, saw the receptionist and came to the same conclusion. "Okay."

The duo stood up, placed the clipboards in the desk and started power walking away at a good clip. As if walking fast would take them out of the uncomfortable situation faster without any faux-pas. No luck.

Without looking up, the receptionist took notice of them leaving. "Bye"

Sheldon was already halfway through the waiting room. "Bye-bye."

Leonard was right behind him closing the door. "See you."

_**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**_

**Space/Time Coordinates:** _**(September 1st 2005 [4:55pm] - Pasadena California)**_ **The stairs of the apartment building. Leonard and Sheldon are walking up.**

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"You think Howard has a better day than we did?" Leonard said.

"I can imagine he did." Sheldon said. "The task list of chores he had to run seemed fun."

"Seemed fun?" Leonard rose his eyebrows. "How on earth can talking to construction crews about redoing your childhood house ever possibly be fun?"

" It's just like playing Sims," Sheldon said rounding a corner, "By the way, we should really bring up the idea of making a open floor space so that Howard can invite us for activities."

"Activities." Both of Leonard eyebrows were raised at this point. "You want to tell Howard to use some of his inheritance money for a spot to play Klingon Boggle."

"Or magnetic Jenga." Sheldon spoke up.

"Why do I even bother…" Leonard muttered under his breath.

Sheldon heard his comment and chose to ignore it. They walked up a couple more steps. Feeling a tension arise Sheldon turned to Leonard.

"You want to hear an interesting thing about stairs?" Sheldon asked.

"Not really."

"If the height of a single step is off by as little as two millimetres," Sheldon continued opting to ignore Leonard, "most people will trip."

"I don't care." Leonard snapped. "Two millimetres? That doesn't seem right."

"No, it's true," much more comfortable Sheldon continued, " I did a series of experiments when I was twelve, my father broke his clavicle."

"Is that why they sent you to boarding school?" Leonard asked.

"No," Sheldon shook his head, "that was the result of my work with lasers."

Tension abated, they continued walking upstairs. Getting off on the third floor they heard Howard talking on the floor above them. They heard the tail end of a joke, and a young female voice laughing.

"Is that Howard successfully flirting?" Leonard asked Sheldon.

"How should I know?" Sheldon rebutted. "I'm here with you. Let's go upstairs."

"Yes, let's." Leonard was very confused. Howard was a terrible flirt yes, but never succeeded as his approach was too creepy. What was going on?

Hurrying a little bit up the last flight of stairs, but not too much as to get out of breath Leonard came into view of the scene ahead of him.

Raj and Howard were standing by the door of his apartment. A blond woman was standing in front of them laughing at a joke Howard made touching his arm. His first immediate sight was her bare upper back in a tight tank top. He could see tight coiled muscles on a slim hourglass figure.

A pair of jean booty shorts completed the image. Asscheeks half hanging out and a red G string riding out the back of her shorts. Shapely thighs and petite legs trailing down to perfectly manicured feed in a pair of comfy flip flops.

Any thoughts of spying on the situation were instantly forgotten. Leonard's mouth dropped open and his pulse quickened. He instantly started crushing on this beautiful stranger.

"— and speak of the devil, here he is!" Howard said, touching Penny's shoulder in return. Sheldon, less interested in the drama finally came around the corner.

Penny turned around giving Leonard the first good look at her. The view in front was even better. The tank top was a low rider showing plenty of cleavage and a smooth flat belly. Noticing a small glint of light, Leonard saw that Penny had a belly button ring. He darted his eyes up to her face lest he be caught gawking.

Opening his mouth to speak he found it arid and dry. Seeing that Leonard was unable to speak momentarily, Howard spoke up.

"Penny these are my two friends I was telling you about," Howard said, "Leonard is the one on the left wearing glasses. Sheldon's the tall one on the right with the comic book shirt."

"Hi." Penny said

"Hi." Leonard repeated.

"Hi." Sheldon finally caught up to the group and also spoke up.

"Hi." Leonard repeated again, a little star struck.

"Hi?" Penny said.

"I was just telling Penny, your new neighbor how nice you and Sheldon have been letting me stay here after I just got out of a coma and am getting the house renovated." Howard said.

"Are you really doing that?" Penny asked.

Feeling a bit more courageous and having swallowed a few times to get saliva back in his mouth Leonard spoke. " Of course, Howard's my friend."

"Oh that's so sweet." Penny said, putting her hands on her chest over her heart. Unintentionally making her boobs jiggle and bringing Leonard's attention right to them.

He took off his glasses and cleaned them to play off the action.

Strangely enough, he noticed putting his glasses back on, Howard didn't look. Typically he would be ogling any girl out of the side of his eyes.

Speaking of Howard wow he looked different. Leonard double glanced, having just got enough brain functioning back to not ogle.

"Do you like to eat?" Leonard suddenly blurred out.

"What?" Penny said, a little confused.

"We usually have a late lunch/ early dinner around now. He's had a busy day, I think he's trying to invite you to join." Howard said leaning over.

Once again, Leonard double glanced. Was Howard….. being a wingman? He's never acted in anyone's else's interest when women were involved. Ever.

"Oh really?" Penny asked bouncing slightly on the spot. Distracted again Leonard only managed to nod.

"Oooh. I'll be right over then. Let me finish moving a couple of these boxes so I can close the door." Penny said, turning around and sauntering back to her apartment.

Leonard looked at her rear jiggling with every step completely distracted. Halfway paying attention he heard Howard speaking.

"Just come on over when you're done! The doors unlocked so walk right in!"

"Thanks Howie!" Penny shouted back, bending down to lift one of the moving boxes. "I'll just be a few minutes!"

Leonard looked back at Howard completely bewildered. Howard just nodded his head towards the door. Taking a key out he opened it and the whole group stepped through.

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**Space/Time Coordinates:** _**(September 1st 2005 [5:20pm] - Pasadena California)**_ **The inside of Sheldon's and Leonard's apartment. **

**Howard has breezed through the door and is setting up food in the living room. Sheldon somewhat uncaring has stepped into the kitchen to make tea. **

**Raj and Leonard are standing by the door flabbergasted.**

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"Dude what was that." Raj said. Finally away from Penny and able to verbally express himself.

"I'd like to know too." Leonard said looking around, taking off his glasses and rubbing his face. Polishing his glasses on the hem of his shirt quickly he put them back on to look into Howard face. "You've never wingman before, much less without some ulterior reason."

Howard bustled around a bit, unpacking food from the bag and setting disposable utensils and napkins around the table. Stopping for a moment he leaned back, head looking up to the ceiling. Then, looking back down and directly at Leonard, " why wouldn't I do that?"

"Huh?" Leonard said, none too elegantly.

In a more serious note Howard continued, "Leonard, Raj, Sheldon. I've been a pretty crummy friend and I'm sorry it's taken near death and my mother passing for me to realize it."

Sheldon stopped moving in the kitchen and looked at Howard.

Raj and Leonard were both slack jawed.

"I've ignored women over you guys, and that was wrong. Sheldon?" Howard spoke up, turning around toward the kitchen, " I've insulted you from the moment we've meet. I'd like to apologize for that now and for every other wrongdoing that I've committed in the past. I hope you can forgive me."

Both Raj and Leonard were speechless and just stood by the door. Raj still holding some of Howard clothing bags from Walmart and Leonard a bag of rice and side dishes.

Sheldon, not usually the most socially understanding person snapped to attention first.

"You're forgiven Howard." He said.

"Now," striding out of the kitchen into the living room Sheldon said, "let's get ready for lunch."

"Psssttt." Howard said. "Leonard."

Unresponsive Howard poked Leonard in the shoulder.

"Huh, what?" Leonard said. At this point completely confused with the changes happening all around him.

"Pretty girl. Coming to eat lunch soon."

"Yeaaaaaaaaah." He said, tilting his head to the side whistfully.

Stage whispering Howard said, "you should go clean up in the bathroom a bit before she comes over. You know, make a better impression and all that."

"Yeaaaaaaaaah." He muttered.

"Soon." Howard said. "She'll be here any minute."

"Oh crap," Leonard suddenly made the connection, " you're right."

Hurrying to the bathroom he spoke up before rounding the corner. "Don't start without me!"

Raj sat on his spot on the floor. "We really should get more chairs." He said getting comfortable. " there's not going to be enough room for 5 people."

Sheldon was already in his spot, picking out the perfect ratio of vegetables to rice and meat. Lunchtime after all, had to be precise for a healthy digestive track system.

"Ah, what the heck guys." Raj spoke up, raising a water bottle in a makeshift toast. "To new beginnings."

Before anyone else could say anything they heard a knocking at the door.

Howard spoke up. "Come on Penny, it's open!"


	5. Chapter 5

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**Space/Time Coordinates: (_September 2nd 2005 [4:30 pm] - Pasadena California)_ Leonard's car. Sheldon and Howard are in the backseat tinkering with something.**

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"Soooo…. anyone want to remind me why we're doing this again?"

"It's because Leonard thinks with his penis."

"Sheldon!" Leonard exclaimed. "That's not it," he said— adjusting himself in the seat and shifting uncomfortably, "It's because I think it's a good idea to do something for our neighbors."

"Mmmmhmmmm…."

We were all driving on the way to Penny's ex's place to get her stuff. This time however, we were doing it in style. All of us were dressed in black suits, white undershirts and loafers.

"Pass me the soldering gun."

"Here you are Howard."

Sheldon was giddy. We were in the backseat putting finishing touches on what could best be described as 1920's evil genius ray guns. Bulky, with a ray type element on the top, smooth refined handles taken from a nerf blaster in the back. An arcade style button was wired in place of a trigger. The LED button shined red with a full light.

"This needs to be green….. if I just make sure the radio contact coil is alighted just right," I pushed the coil in place and with a click the light shone green, "aha! It works!"

"Gimme gimme gimme!" Sheldon said, dropping a spool of solder and wiggling his fingers reaching out."

"Hold on Sheldon, I need to finish putting the handle together."

Leonard spoke up, "I'm surprised you got it to work." He looked back in the rearview mirror and eyed the gun, "what's the output by the way?"

"With the radio wave forming a beam of non ionized air and the linux chip running a alternating power fluctuating sine wave- should be a couple of feet max."

We were on the way to try to get Penny's stuff back. Her ex was huge, and we were nerds. However, like good nerds, we came prepared.

In my hands I held one of two microwave emitter guns built just for this occasion. The idea just came to me last night when I learnt that no amount of talk would pursuance Leonard otherwise.

The guns featured a microwave emitter protected by a radio broadcast antenna beam. When activated, a circular radio beam would ionize the air in a chanel ahead of the microwave port. Millisecond afterwards microwave radiation would flow on the channel hitting the target. A alternating current chip that constantly modulated the frequency of the microwave bursts would insure that it built up in a consistent power level.

The result? A device which caused pain by boiling the water under your skin in a broad setting, in a focused application- overloading the nervous system directly causing short term paralysis. Powered by a lithium ion laptop battery it had a maximum of 3 minutes of use. Not enough to be practical, but enough for our endeavor.

"Slow down Leonard," Sheldon said looking out the window trying to spot wildlife, "I want to zap a pidgin."

"No Sheldon," Leonard said firmly, " we're not going to be shooting pigeons with a microwave beam." He looked at the backseat at a excitable Sheldon. Just to be certain, Leonard locked the doors again and clicked the child lock on the windows.

"By the way Howard, this might be the finest thing you've ever made." Sheldon spoke up admiring the futuristic weapon in his hands. "I almost take back what I've said about engineering."

"Aww. Thanks Sheldon."

"Don't push it. I said almost." Sheldon said. "While a interesting application of existing technology I won't think anything you do is amazing unless you discover a new element or something of that magnitude."

"I'd still take it." Leonard spoke up. "It's a better compliment than I've ever received." Looking at me in the rearview mirror he shrugged. As if to say 'what can you do about it'.

Giving a halfhearted silent shrug to Leonard I told sheldon—"Maybe I'll take you up on that."

With that said, I thought back over the sequence of events that lead to us dressed up as Men in Black, ready to rob—- I mean reacquire Penny's things from her ex boyfriend.

Penny walked in yesterday and we had a nice late lunch talking about small stuff. She eventually revealed that her shower was broken and Leonard let her use his.

When she couldn't get the hot water to work, Leonard got dragged back into the bathroom. And when a naked Penny asked him a favor, Leonard instantly accepted and was gung ho to run out the door immediately.

Luckily I did manage to convince Leonard otherwise. That it would be smarter to plan something out for the next day

We made a run to the house where I picked up plenty of tools and equipment. Ripping apart the broken microwave in the garage and using spare wiring and some props I designed and built the entire project in a few hours.

When Leonard and Sheldon went to bed I started working on a second project. A paralysis gun might get us through the door, but we needed something else to avoid getting in trouble or pantsed.

As a group, we nerds were rather fond of not having our pants stolen.

That's why in the briefcase on the floor I had a surprise that spent most of the night making. A Men in Black memory wipe device.

Well, I say memory wipe device when in reality I mean a heavily modified flash grenade. A forward facing flashing strobe light, with a high energy directional electromagnetic wave generator.

Theoretically the combined flash with directional magnetic field would directly overstimulate the vision centers of the brain. Overloading it, causing unconsciousness and short term memory loss.

One shot only.

The capacitors were charged fully and the em pulse would be strong enough to fry the wiring on the inside.

Hopefully it wouldn't be needed.

"My fingers feel weird." Leonard said.

"Wait you're not allergic to latex too?" I said.

"No I'm not," Leonard said, "it's the adhesive. Its irritating me."

"Yeah my fingers feel weird too." I said, sharing my feelings so Leonard wouldn't feel excluded. "But you gotta admit, this is pretty cool."

To complete the Men in Black facade we'd dipped our fingers in liquid latex to obscure fingerprints. Afterwards Sheldon applies a thin veneer of heavy duty cosplay vetted makeup matching our respective skin tones.

Gripping things without traction felt rather strange.

"Okay so we should decide code names."

"I vote Star Trek!" Sheldon yelled still waving his ray gun and making sound effects with his mouth.

"Sheldon were not—"

"Actually that's not a bad idea," I interrupted, "In fact I might have a few that fit this situation perfectly."

Leonard looked apprehensive and confused in the rearview mirror. "Why do we need code names again."

"We're doing something of dubious legality." I said. "We should at least make sure it doesn't come back to haunt us."

"I call Spock!" Sheldon excitedly shouted. Suddenly patting his chest as if a mock communication badge was attached he said "enterprise- 3 to energize."

Leonard chucked, much more relaxed than a moment ago.

"Okay," still chuckling, "what's my code name going to be."

"Mmmm….." I mock pondered. "Since we're doing this only because a pretty girl convinced you… I'd have to say you're Will Riker."

Sheldon stopped wiggling in his car seat having a mock pretend fight with the Borg for a second. Looking at me he said "Will Riker?" He turned to look at Leonard's reflection and then back at me. "That's perfect Howard, I couldn't have thought up a better character myself."

"Why thank you Mr. Android." I said.

Sheldon started looking around momentarily. Taking a moment to process he thought about the code name. Mr. Android, obviously referring to Data Soong.

"While I would have preferred Spock, I accept that as a temporary codename it is deemed acceptable." Sheldon said. "As long as I get to blast him with my ray gun first." He continued nodding.

"Alright Sheldon." I said. "You've got first volley. But remember to aim at the extremities. I don't know what direct torso shots will do."

"Mr. Android," Sheldon said pointing at himself, "Will Riker," he continued pointing at Leonard, "what's your codename going to be?" He finished up turning around.

"Mmm…. Either Geordi Laforge or Weasley. Geordi because I built these guns, or Weasley because I'm the youngest here."

"Well, we know Wil Wheaton in real life so you'll have to be Geordi." Sheldon said before Leonard could interject with anything.

"And just in time too." Leonard said. "We're here."

* * *

**_Authors note:_**

* * *

**_After careful consideration, I decided eeeehhhh... what the heck, why not add notes on how stuff is going. _**

**_I've deleted the first "chapter" that had all the symbols for what different fonts and effects mean. At some point soon I'll add that back into the beginning of the first chapter. (The OCD of the chapters not matching up was getting to me.)_**

**_Things are different now! I'm looking forward to the gang minus Raj actually being effective to bullies for once._**

**_Next chapter might be between 1-2 weeks, currently doing a fair amount of house remodeling. Life right?_**


	6. Chapter 6

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**Space/Time Coordinates:** _**(September 2nd 2005 [5:00 pm] - Northern Los Angeles California)**_ **Leonard's car. Parked in front of Penny's ex's apartment.**

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"And just in time too." Leonard said. "We're here."

"Good." Sheldon said.

"Alright guys," I said getting out of the car and handing Leonard his microwave gun. I was unarmed, carrying only the suitcase with the memory scrambler, " let me do the talking."

"Alright Agent Laforge." Leonard said getting Into character. "Let's just act like this is comic con and we're shooting a scene."

I turned to Leonard. Knowing his stressful and flighty nature, and making sure Leonard knew that we were doing this —one way or another— said, "Indeed number 1. You, Agent Riker, will get the door open for us. Agent Android and myself will get us to the apartment."

"Affirmative." Sheldon said.

"Then let's get to it team." I said as we all walked towards the door.

We had parked a street away in a inconspicuous place next to the apartment building. Leonard tucked his gun into a shoulder holster before buttoning the suit up.

Sheldon tucked his into the suits inner pocket. "It's a good thing I've still got my Super Secret Spy issue Velcro hooks."

I looked at Sheldon. He was velcroing the gun on the inside of his suit. Frankly the man looked ridiculous, however since I had Howard's memory's and abilities of a close up theatrical magician, I wasn't one to talk.

"You got the folder?" I asked Sheldon.

"Oh silly me," Sheldon said. He poked his head back in the car and started rooting around. Finding a official court summons look alike envelope he handed it to me, "here you are Howard."

What?

Sheldon wrote a 25 page roommate agreement for Leonard. Throwing together a 5 page 'give us Penny's stuff back or else' ultimatum was child's play.

Verifying that all our outfits were crisp and official looking as one we turned and walked to the apartments front entrance.

"Now what?" Leonard said.

We were looking at the microphone system for entry. With enough time, a few screwdrivers, an Allen wrench, and some wires, I could easily hard hack the door.

But not without numerous witnesses.

"Now," I said turning to Leonard and hovering my finger over the button to Penny's ex's apartment, "Now you do the smooth talking." I said depressed the button.

Which momentarily started ringing.

"Yeah?"

Leonard cleared his throat. "Hey, we're here to get a Penelope Summers items back."

"Get lost." The voice said and promptly hung up.

The three of us looked at the intercom. "Well that could have gone better" Leonard said.

"So," Sheldon turned to me one hand reaching inside his jacket pocket fingering the gun, "Should I fry the intercom system like this is a doctor who screwdriver and that's a blast door?"

He seemed really excited at the prospect of causing damage and destruction.

"In a minute Sheldon," I said moving in front of the intercom, "I actually have a simpler and quicker idea."

"Which is?" Sheldon asked.

"This." I said turning to the system.

And then promptly mashed every single button on the intercom. Seconds later the door buzzed open. Catching the door with my foot and pulling it all the way open I gestured back theatrically one handed.

"And that's how it's done."

"Cool." Leonard said.

* * *

We walked inside and found the elevator. Getting inside we hit the ninth floor. "9B, come on 9B." Leonard said muttering looking around.

"Here it is Agent Riker." Sheldon spoke up. He had found the door.

"Alright, now remember. I do the talking, you guys are the muscle."

I stood in the center of the group. To my left, Sheldon. To the right, Leonard. We looked and shared a glance between each other. Then with determination I knocked on the door.

**Knock knock knock **hey there

**Knock knock knock **hey there

**Knock knock knock **hey there

Sheldon looked at me with a wry smile. Out of the corner of his smile he mouthed "good choice."

I nodded back to him.

Seconds later the hulk opened the door.

Well, not the hulk _per-say. _Just a huge swollen with muscles gym bro. It looked like his muscles had muscles.

This guy obviously hit up the gym daily and probably did chest, huge arms, and tall. My God was he tall.

Either that or was just a huge dick with aggression issues. Any way not someone I wanted to be around.

"Hi there! We represent Penelope Summers. My name is Agent Laforge. The tall associate to my left is Agent Android, to my right Agent Riker." I opened the folder, handing Sheldon's agreement over before he could get a word in. "And here we have a agreement stating that you need to release her property to us, or else we'll have to use force."

"How the fuck did you even get in." He said confused and beginning to get angry. I could see it in the way his shoulders bunched up and his eyebrows furrowed.

Like a chimpanzee attempting to discover the secrets of fire.

This was going to be fun.

I was going to fuck with him.

Leaning in a bit closer, I gestured with my hand silently.

"That information," I began Cheshire cat grin forming on my face, "is classified."

Reaching my hands out I tapped the guys shoulder. It was a pretty arranged signal. _Get ready_.

As ex boyfriend looked down at the papers leafing through them, becoming more agitated. In his worldview guys like us, ie weak nerds didn't dress in fine suits threatening someone with paperwork. But Rude Awakenings seldom care weather you're ready or not.

And unbeknownst to Eddy, that's what we were.

A very rude wake up call.

The guys got their weapons ready. Sheldon reached in his vest and pulled the wave gun out, aiming at his shoulder joints. Leonard took his gun out of the holster and aimed at his knees.

Eddy, the ex boyfriend finally had enough. Leafing through the paperwork he saw there was no court stickers or official watermarks. Sheldon had helpfully placed confidential Men In Black watermarks on the pages thought. Id have to thank him for the nice theatrical touches later. Eddy on the other hand wasn't as appreciative.

In one motion he ripped the papers in half. "And what are you going to do to stop me." He said, looking up and seeing Sheldon and Leonard with weapons drawn pointing at him.

Seeing the ray guns he started laughing. To be fair we did look a bit ridiculous.

" Are you threatening me with toy sci fi guns?" He chortled. "That's hilarious!"

He laughed some more. No doubt thinking he was about to beat our asses.

"No, we are threatening you with real sci-fi guns." I said smirking cockily. This sent him into a fit of giggles.

"Now?" Sheldon asked leaning over his shoulder.

"Not yet." I answered. "Let him get this over juuuuust to the point where it becomes ironic in hindsight."

Eddy finished leaning against the door laughing. I dont think ive ever seen someone laugh that hard without peeing themselves. He straightened up angrily. "You know, I was planning on pantsing you. But now I think I'm going to shove those toy guns up your ass."

He started aggressively moving towards us.

"Now?" Leonard asked.

"Now." I said

And with two muted whirl noises the guys activated their emitters.

A electric charge built up. The radio wave activated its dual directional frequency pulse. A quarter of a millisecond later the water in the air become ionized. Then, the microwave pulse rocketed through the ionized water vapor, rapidly switching polarity of the molecules magnitude generating friction.

North, south, north, south, north.

The rapid magnetic switches generated friction.

Heat.

Targeted heat underneath the skin.

Directly bombarding the major nerve centers responsible for voluntary muscle movement. All in a fraction of a second.

Eddy froze mid lunge. He never stood a chance. Sheldon, precise as ever hit him in both shoulder blades in rapid succession. Leonard was nervous and missed, hitting his foot instead of the knee.

The result was the same. Like a tree in a forest being cleared by aggressive lumberjacks, he fell. Suddenly. Within two moments he went from a Greek God statue, all powerful with sculpted marble muscles to rubble.

And we were the artists who had the chisel.

**Whump **

"What the fuck," he moaned, " did you just do." He was on the ground moaning and twitching.

The guns may have sent targeted microwave burst under the skin swelling the nerve clusters up causing paralysis, but it wasn't precise. Right now I'm willing to bet he feels as if we gave him a instant sunburn and threw a water balloon full of acid on the joints.

I bent down to the ground, so I could look at him eye level. Eddy looked at me fearfully, eyes darting seriously to the weapons that Sheldon and Leonard held.

"We," I started seriously having Eddy's full undivided attention, "did exactly what we said we would."

His eyes widened. At this moment I could see he knew that we were serious. He was powerless. The nerds who Eddy beat on since elementary school were not defenseless. Every person he had wronged before could snap and react back. Violently.

"You asked me who we were." I said.

"Since you refused to cooperate and then tried to attack my partners I think you should know who we are."

I looked at Sheldon and Leonard. "We," I began in a stage conspiretal whisper, " are the Men in Black. Now I know what you're thinking," I continued really monologuing, "It's a childrens movie. That stuff can't be real right?" I placed my briefcase on the floor momentarily right by Eddy's head. "We had our public relations department fund that movie. After all, it makes it much easier to operate if people have already bought the idea of our department existing." I tilted my head to the side to look at him inquisitively. "Don't you find that right?"

Eddy looked at me in terror.

My piece said, I stood up saying to the guys- " Bag him and bring him in. It's time for faze two."

* * *

With effort we dragged him inside and across the living room, leaning against the couch. His legs were splayed out on the floor. Leonard stood by my side while Sheldon started flipping through his list of items Penny said were hers.

"Agent Android, would you mind turning on the TV for background noise?" I said. "We don't want to disturb the neighbors."

"Good thing I had the spare list…" Sheldon muttered absently turning on the TV. It was set to the sports channel. The paid subscription one,

I looked at Sheldon, then Leonard. Of course this douche would use Penny's accounts for watching expensive sports on her credit. Finally I turned my gaze onto Eddy paralyzed on the floor.

"Now then!" I said theatrically. After all this was the part where we found out if the mind scrambler worked, or didn't. The paralysis would wear off shortly, and being in a apartment with a angry hulk was a terrible idea. If effective all of this evening would be a blur so the theatrics weren't needed per-say.

It was more for me and the guys.

We only had a few more shots on the wave guns left. If this didn't work we'd have to find rope.

I crouched down placing my suitcase on the floor right next to Eddy.

"We'd appreciate it if you kept quiet." I said looking at a grimacing Eddy. "The paralysis guns we have can lock your jaw up, but might fry your brain and i'd rather not have to do that. So keep quiet, savvy?" I flashed a toothy grin. Eddy was in too much pain and denial to say anything.

He kept shaking his torso. Probably trying to get mobility back into his arms.

I rotated the suitcase horizontally. It was a well used brown leather with clickable nickel straps on the top. With a loud and ominous click I opened the case. Slowly I rotated the case facing Eddy.

"I take it you know what this is?"

Inside the case was my memory scrambler. The casing was from a old mega size Thermos. The insulated walls were used to keep the magnetic coil suspended in liquid nitrogen. Colder temperatures would allow for less interference when it came time for the EM pulse. On top was a miniature electric arc reactor wired into a digital readout clock and a mess of soldered chips.

Eddy took one look at the case and his eyes grew huge. He opened his mouth in a effort to shout. Probably thought it was a pipe bomb.

Leonard shot him again. This time in the dick. Eddy writhed in pain and fell onto the floor.

"Oops." Leonard said.

I just rubbed my temples and exhaled slowly. "Honestly Agent Riker… we've been over this. Aim at the joints not the core."

Eddy finally stopped rolling and twitching.

"Here, help me get him up again."

We got him pushed back into his previous position.

"Now then," I continued a bit out of breath. The man really was heavy, "Agent Android here is going to do the honors- this being his first time out in the field."

"Oh goody! Goody!" Sheldon exclaimed passing his wave gun to Leonard. Leonards was out of charge.

"It's got a ten second countdown timer." I said passing the device over to Sheldon. "Put on your glasses before I hand it over."

We all put on our glasses. Turning to Eddy, Sheldon held the scrambler with both hands.

"Well here goes nothing." He said hitting the power switch. The timer started ticking. Ten…..eight….four…. With two seconds left to spare and making sure Eddy was paying complete attention Sheldon prepared himself for the last words that Eddy would soon forget.

And with a bright white flash as hot as a industrial arc welder the word could be heard echoing in the silence of a concentrated direct pulse of energy.

"Bazinga."

* * *

_**Authors note:**_

* * *

_**Did it work? Who knows :) I thought id leave it on a cliffhanger.**_

_**Originally I was going to write this and release it a week later, as there's homework due soon. But for the life of me I just couldn't concentrate until got this written out.**_

_**No idea what my posting schedule is going to be in the future. Lets go with biweekly in a bad week, and whenever the mood strikes in a good one. **_

_**Please leave reviews!  
**_


	7. Chapter 7

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**Space/Time-Coordinates: (_September 12nd 2005 [12:06 pm] -Caltech Cafeteria _) The guys are sitting down around the table. Sheldon and Raj are on one side, Sheldon and Leonard on the other.**

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"—Look, all I'm saying is it's not warp drive." I said.

It was a week and a few days after robbing Eddy blind, taking back all of Penny's things.

We didn't stick around long enough to find out if he remembered anything waking up, but the drive by we did last Thursday at least we know he was fine.

In the week that went by I'd managed to get a good contractor out into the house. I'd been hitting up the gym at Caltech during afternoon breaks. The neurological tests came back fine and I was cleared to drive. Ended up buying a good dinky honda civic.

Wouldn't want to spend too much inheritance money. Who knew what the future held?

And there were so many engineering projects to build now that had the resources and brain power...

Right now we were in the cafeteria eating lunch.

It was Monday, my first day back to work. I had a buildup list of projects to take care of. Turns out Howard didn't just do stuff for NASA and aerospace engineering, but was also the maintenance guy for the Physics department.

It was cheaper to have me fix things after all. Having the necessary qualifications cut down on the amount of extra people to hire after all. More money saved, more money for the physics department after all.

Everything seemed to be going fine with coming back. The list of projects I had was large, but manageable. The department heads had been happy that I returned just in time before they had to contact the manufacturer on a faulty laser in one of the theoretical physics labs. It would have been expensive to replace.

And everything seemed to be going fine with the guys, until I opened my mouth and stated a opinion about Star Trek that had been percolating in my mind.

Maybe one day all of the deconstruction of popular science fiction would be useful in some way, shape, or fashion.

Science fact is built upon science fiction.

That's literally how the flip phone I carried in my pocket was made. Because some executive saw Star Trek, then told their engineers 'hey, build this'.

"How could you say that Howard." Sheldon said, voice raised and elevated with emotion.

"The warp drive is a staple of Star Trek and doesn't appear in any other franchise. The principles are sound and while the medium of visuals may have changed over the years from the original trek to The Next Generation, warp drive has always been the compression of space to exceed faster than light speeds."

Sheldon did have a point.

"But they aren't affected by gravity." I said. " Even if we run with the assumption that it is a true alcubierre warp drive that compresses space in front of the vessel and expands it behind it, it would still be affected by gravity and thus require massive calculations for warp jumps."

"It all hinges on whether gravity is a universal force like how Quantum Loop Gravity proposes, or a background staple like String Theory." I continued.

It was fascinating watching Sheldon's face turn red from anger. A vein steadily enlarged itself on his forehead and started throbbing. "And even if the drive did ignore gravity in some way or fashion, it would still be affected by mass. After all you can't warp through a planet or a sun."

Sheldon opened his mouth to speak, but was rendered mute. Quite simply flabbergasted.

"Damn." Raj said. "You made him speechless."

"Nice one." Leonard said. "But what about the shields? Why Wouldn't the shields protect the ship from debris?"

Sheldon was still speechless. I think he was contemplating the nature of warp drive for the first time in full other than 'zoom! They go fast'.

I poked a bit at my Jello. It was red. It wobbled precariously as I poked at it. I hated red. Why couldn't they have green…

"It's the nature of the shield in the first place." I began. "Being a encapsulated bubble of some sort of energy, probably plasma it's proven susceptible to energy bursts right?"

"Oh yeah that's totally the case," Raj said rustling in his bag of chips having put down his sandwich, "like, their shields go down all the time in engagements with the romulans, Klingons, and borg."

"Plus," He said crunching on a rather loud potato chip, "even if it's plasma or electromagnetic energy, it's still not powerful enough to withstand cosmic radiation, pulsars, gamma bursts from black holes—"

"—Okay I get it Raj." Leonard interrupted. "But what if!... wait no, that wouldn't work."

He deflated, thinking heavily in what terms a bubble shield would be powerful enough to withstand the rigors I'd space and FTL travel while still being able to be breached easily.

Sheldon on the other hand, was done with his thinking process.

Opening his mouth to say something, Kripke walked by interrupting him.

"Howawd!" Kripke smacked my shoulders interrupting Sheldon. "It's dwa Fwash back at wowk!" He seemed excited. "How was getting hit bwy lightwing?"

"Oh you know," I said nonchalant, "to be honest I don't remember much as they kept me in a medically induced coma. But you know-"

I raised my finger, about to explain how I woke up with the taste of peach cobblers in my mouth when Sheldon, red in the face, interrupted.

"It's-still-warp-drive-because-even-if-you-view-gravity-under-the-paradigms-of-quantum-loop-theory-or-string-theory-its-interphased-from-a-different-dimension-and-thus-constant-" Sheldon blurted out in a large gasp. Panting for air he took a deep drink of water.

"Done now?" Leonard asked amused at Sheldons antics, and a little bit upset still thinking about the nature of warp travel.

Sheldon- still drinking raised a single finger on his left hand.

In a moment.

Taking a huge gasp of air he continued. "-even-if-gravity-isn't-a-fundamental-Force-the-compression-of-space/time-would-make-any-cosmic-dust-hit-the-ship-with-subliminal-Force-at-a-rate-the-shields-could-compensate."

"What?" Kripke asked very confused.

"We're arguing over weather or not the warp drive in Star Trek is really warp, or a sort of hyperspace travel." I explained.

"Excuse me," Sheldon leaned over the table speaking louder to ensure his point was heard, "it is warp."

"Why wouldn't it bwe wwarp dwive?" Kripke said.

"Don't get him started." Raj said. "Howard's brought up the point that the warp drive doesn't need massive calculations for anticipating the gravity wells of cosmic objects and that the shields aren't tough enough to withstand cosmic debris."

He munched another potato chip. "Speaking frank, as a astrophysicist I agree."

The whole table turned to look at him.

"It's 'frankly speaking'," I said, "not 'speaking frank'."

"Are you sure?" Raj asked, a inquisitive look on his face. "That doesn't sound right."

"Oh yeah I'm sure." I said getting back to the previous conversation. "Say Kripke, weren't you a plasma scientist before switching over to theoretical work."

"Yes I was a pwasma swientist," Kripke said, "and dwe entwepeise sweilds awe totalwy pwasma. It's swectional as seen bwy dwa fowawd and bwackwawd shweilds needing two bwe moduwated."

"Bwy dwa way, I'm gwad youwe bwack howawd." Kripke said. He was late to lunch and eyeing the remainder of the line trying to spot out what he wanted to eat. "Wive got a waser that nweeds fixing."

"Oh that's your laser?" I said flipping through my list of items to be fixed in the various labs and classrooms for the upcoming week. "Let's see… you are third next on the importance list. I'll be by sometime this afternoon."

"Mmkay." He clapped me on my shoulders and started waking off. "Hey fweel bettew Okay?"

Kripke walked off and got into the dwindling line.

"The nerve of some people." Sheldon huffed air through his nose is a dismissive snort.

We all turned to look at him.

"What?" Sheldon interjected. "Coming over here and siding with you about warp drive….."

"Hey are we still on for Sci-fi night?" I asked Leonard.

"Huh?"

"Maybe." Sheldon said. "Someone," He said giving Leonard the stink eye, "thought id be great to agree to bring our new neighbors things in her apartment while she works today."

Oh yeaaaaaah. Penny was having a new entertainment system delivered or something like that today.

"Okay, well depending on how these projects go I might be by to help later today."

"Allright." Sheldon said. "Knock yourself out… or rather don't." He gave a dry laugh.

"Was that a joke?" Leonard asked.

"Yup." Sheldon said. "Bazinga."

"Alright, I'll see you guys this afternoon then." I said as they got up and left. It was just me and Raj sitting comfortably silently finishing our lunches.

As much fun as it was rebuilding damaged science equipment there was something that was bugging me.

In the almost 3 weeks I've been awake, odd things were going on with my body. I was a full inch taller than Leonard at this point, which no one noticed yet, having not paid close enough attention.

I've been going to the gym for about a week, and in a body that had never touched weights before in my life, I was healing far faster than should be humanly possible.

Not like Wolverine, but the tensions and aches that you'd expect when you start working out we're greatly diminished.

It's almost as if that psychedelic trip when I got thrown into this life altered my genetic code.

Intuitive understanding of mechanical physics was coming easier to me. My senses were subtly sharper, and mathematical concepts that eluded me in the past were becoming easier to grasp.

I'd have to find some time to scientifically figure out what was happening to me, lest I develop superpowers and end up a lab rat.

Chilling thoughts.

But, sci-fi night was a good distraction.

"Last I heard from Leonard we'd be binge watching season 1 of some show before season 2 came out." I said. "Did he tell you what it was?"

Raj finished his sandwich and started getting his trash together. "Oh yeah, it's some show that I never really got into. Wormhole extreme."

I froze. "Wormhole extreme? You mean like the shitty Stargate knockoff show?"

"What's Stargate?" Raj asked.

"You know…. Stargate… with the wormholes and the goa'uld and all that jazz."

"I've never heard about that show in my life." Raj said standing up ready to toss his trash away and head back into work. "Anywho, I'll see you later tonight."

"Yeah.. sure…" I said giving a halfhearted wave back. Wormhole extreme was real…. and Stargate wasn't…. I was experiencing genetic changes…. What did this mean….

Holy Shit. The thought struck me suddenly.

I was in the Stargate universe.

* * *

_**Authors note:**_

* * *

_**This was fun.**_

_**A wormhole x treme reference because it's all the Stargate subreddit seems to focus on sometimes!**_

_**And a few other references hidden through.**_

_**The warp thing has also been something I've wondered about for ages.**_

_**The more I think about it…. the less it seems to be true warp drive and some form of hyperspace travel instead.**_

_**Also a shoutout to gateworld and all the transfix websites that exist for TBBT and Stargate.**_

_**Know most of this is technobabble, but I've always loved science fiction that has a element of realistic science in play. Hopefully I'll be able to convey that in the future.**_

_**As always, please leave a review even if it's calling me out on something inaccurate or wrong.**_

_**Kudos**_


	8. Chapter 8

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**Space/Time-Coordinates:** _**(September 12nd 2005 [4:30 pm] -Leslie Winkle's lab )**_

**Howard is up on a ladder adjusting a vent. Leslie is in the room giving directions. Whiteboards covered in equations cover the walls. A complicated array of lasers, prisms and detectors is underneath the vent set up on a table.**

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"A little to the left." Leslie winkle said.

It was my fourth project of the day after lunch and the list was taking a while to burn through.

Kripke's laser was a easy fix. The power coupler solder point was half melted causing the laser to sputter. Seemed like there was some issue with the air conditioning. Some rooms were freezing cold, and others way too hot.

"Now?" I asked.

"Almost there." She moved a bit further behind me.

I was stretched out on a short aluminum ladder adjusting the air vent. Apparently the cold air from the vent was playing havoc with atmospheric distortion causing any laser experiments to be off, as the beam needed to be unwavering.

"You know, I don't think any amount of me adjusting the vents will help." I absently said, thinking about what to do, knowing about the existence of aliens. Maybe. Maybe wormhole extreme was just a tv show and Stargate didn't exist.

Because Honesty?

That reality would be terrifying.

Aliens could attack the planet at any moment. The gate could go critical and explode taking half the planet with it. Dangerous viruses and replicator robots could overthrow everything Terminator Skynet style.

And while I was -maybe- altered genetically into a Lantean Ancient, the potential to be ascended didn't mean I was one.

It looked like my genetic code was altered. But to what? I was taller, stronger, and smarter. Logic dictated that it had to be something special. Something extraordinary. In the Stargate universe, Ancient ascension was the pinnacle powerup. And I was powered up.

But only slightly.

My cells were still the same. I looked, breathed, and acted like normal. Swapping out the nucleus only had a cumulative effect after many hundreds of cell divisions.

Seven years.

That's how long it took for all the cells in a human body to replace itself.

Right now I was only slightly above average. My tech ideas only a result of being a huge nerd and gifted with vastly more processing power than I was used to.

I needed to find some way to survive and thrive until the Ancient cells would overtake a majority of my body.

Anywhere between three to five years before my full potential became evident.

What I'd give for a goa'uld sarcophagus….That could power me up in no time.

At the same time, I wanted to stay as far away from the goa'uld as possible.

Far, far away.

"How's this?" I said, having finished bending the vent planes so cold air would blow off the experimental area.

"Eeeeehhhhh. Getting there bucko." Leslie said looking at the board. "Try it a little more over to the left."

"Let me see what the distortion pattern is first." I got off the ladder and looked at the table.

A helium oxygen laser was shining a beam towards a series of refractors and prisms. The beam was split and combined at multiple stages of its journey before heading off into a series of detectors. Looking close to the table I could see there was a heat haze as cold air from the vent fell onto the table.

Being denser than the surrounding hot Californian September air, it caused ripples and waves to appear in the path of the beam.

"Well," Leslie said, "at least it's progress."

"Really?" I said. "Because it looks like it just made it worse."

Instead of a single column of cold air affecting the laser at the discharge site, it was a myriad of smaller points all through the table.

"Would you be okay with me getting a airplane exhaust hood and having all the cold air blow into the office?" I asked. "The only other option I can think of would be getting the university to turn this vent off."

Leslie thought about it for a moment, tapping her chin with her index finger idly.

"Mmm.. I suppose so, but only if you can weld it to the grate." She said. "I'd rather not have it fall onto the prisms or leak air."

"Alright," I said heading towards the door, "I'll be back in a bit with a Epoxy and some aluminum sheeting for the vent."

I wandered over to my office and got all the necessary equipment while still pondering what to do.

Let's run with the assumption that Stargate is real. I wouldn't be thrown into another reality for a elaborate Being to play a tv show worthy prank. It would be better to assume everything was real roughly accurate to what I remember the tv shows portraying. What could I do?

There's no way I could show up at Cheyenne mountain and tell general Hammond everything the Stargate program should be doing.

I'd get jailed instantly.

Not to mention what other people would want if I revealed future knowledge….. not it be far safer to go for a Machiavellian approach and NEVER under any circumstance say anything.

What I needed was some way to get my ideas to the people on Stargate command without outing myself as the source, I thought heading back to Leslie's lab.

"Here they are," I said grunting hefting the tools onto a small side table. "I swear there's something wrong with the lasers in the whole department today."

Let's see…. all the tools, check. Materials to weld, check. Only thing left to do is turn the air off while I worked so liquid epoxy wouldn't spatter everywhere. I turned to the corner of the room where the thermostat was and saw Leslie ignoring me, focused on a whiteboard instead.

She was doodling equations on several boards, spanning the side of the room. Completely engrossed in her work. I walked over closer and snuck a peek over her shoulder.

Part of Hindenburg's uncertainty principle here, light refraction and quantum information retention there, Einstein's general relativity…

"Is that part of a equation for making a quasi quantum optical computer system?" I asked startling Leslie.

"Jesus!" She jumped a bit in the air started and threw a marker at me. "Make a bit more noise coming into the room next time!"

Past Howard was a dick to Leslie, my memories supplied. Always hitting on her at every opportunity, blatant sexual harassment, and the occasional snide remark.

No wonder she didn't like me.

To be honest, most of my relationships were this way. I'd have to change things drastically soon if I was to live a life not being ostracized. I had to start taking steps making it up to people soon. Leslie Winkle was actually a pretty cool person. Plus, I needed more people to hang out with than just the guys.

"Sorry Leslie." I said. "I'll make more noise next time." Turning to the whiteboards I looked closer at her equations. As far as I could see everything was right….well mostly. Despite not knowing mathematics to such a great degree my gaze kept gravitating towards one small section of the board. The lower right quadrant looked… off for some reason. Wrong. But I couldn't picture how.

"Hey," I said gesturing at the collection of whiteboards as a whole, "What is this?"

Leslie looked at me.

Must be odd for Howard not to make everything a innuendo and hit on her. Carefully guarded she began talking. "You're mostly right," she said gesturing at the board, "This is just a idea I had a few weeks ago that i'm working on. I had a idea of how to make a optical computer chip that uses laser pulses to transmit information, but i'm running into a issue of having the logic circuits transmit electric pulses. WIthout that its not going to work. The information is just flowing faster than the transmitters can tolerate."

Huh, so that's what it was. Lets see, the laser would blink rapidly in binary, thousands of blinks per second with each light pulse carrying gigabytes of potential information. It went into a prism splitter which split the beam in half causing each to go through a series of Logic gates. Then the beams combined and the waves and crests either combined synergistically or canceled each other out. Theoretically, if this worked as intended then using one beam of light you could calculate multiple variables simultaneously. Essentially a crystal computer.

Just like the Lanteans.

However - the speed of light was way faster than any electric gate could ever hope to keep up with. While the logic of this idea was sound, technology would be centuries behind catching up to a working prototype.

"What if you replaced the gate with more prisms?" I asked.

"Wouldn't work." Leslie shook her head dismissively. "Id have to have the prisms set up the exact nanoscale needed for solving whatever equation was being calculated, and at that point why even bother?"

"Good point." I said.

We both stared at the equation whiteboard glumly.

"Well!" I suddenly said turning around to the pile of epoxy and metal I had stashed in the side of the room. " I should probably get to this." Moving over I started mixing the epoxy concentration needed to adhere a ninety degree elbow bend onto the vent. "Good luck with that."

"Wait that's it?" Leslie asked looking at me strangely.

"What's it?"

"You know," she began. "you hit on me creepily, I reject you and call you names. You try to say something with some sort of innuendo and I turn it right back into a insult."

Leslie was looking at me with her head tilted and shoulders raised. A single arched brow and bunched up forehead showed the unease she felt. Confusion. Nothing verbal, but her body language was screaming '_Who the fuck is this person?_'.

"Oh yeah." I said climbing the short ladder one handed, the other carrying the elbow bend. "Turns out being in a coma and experiencing some traumatic shit firsthand changes you as a person-" Getting on top of the ladder I pushed the bottom of the vent bend into place to hold it. Id have to stay here for a couple minutes anyway, so might as well patch things up with Leslie.

"- And I thought that announcing i'm a new me was just so cheesy, and such a old trope, not to mention it would get annoying after a while, that I just should start acting normal and let people draw their own conclusions instead."

"Huh." Leslie said. "I never would have expected it."

"Thanks I guess." I said. " Since can't tell if you mean that genuinely or as a compliment i'll take it as the latter."

"Of course it's the second one dumbass." Leslie said, body language suddenly back to her norm. Right. It would still take a while to bring things to normalicy. I was alright with that.

"Okay well," I got off the ladder and dusted my hands off, " text me if it starts acting up again alright?"

"Suuuuuuuuure thing dumbass." Leslie said turning back to her boards. " I'll be sure to do that."

Ouch. The sarcasm stung.

But, as I was gathering my tools up ready to take them back to my office, I noticed Leslie taking her phone out. She went into her contacts and started milling about. And right before I was willing to call it quits and get out of the office, I saw she selected my number, and changed my name from 'Creep' to 'Howard'.

Not much, but it's a start.

* * *

Getting out of the lab I walked to my office and thought - _that's it._ I knew how I could help Stargate Command.

And with putting myself in minimal risk.

I was thrown into the life of a nerd, geek, scientist, and astroengineer.

Well, what would a nerd and scientist do when presented with a problem and needing to get a solution out to a large variety of people?

That's right.

_Write a Paper._

I was going to binge watch Wormhole Extreme.

Find out all the flaws and everything single piece of scientific criteria mentioned.

And then write a very detailed paper crossed with a technical manual on how exactly to set up the Bases, operate the SG teams, and deal with tech this world had ever seen.

Oh i'd be hard for sure, I'd have to convince the guys to go along with this and write their own papers to as a smokescreen to keep me under the cover. But if i did this right - this world would be more prepared for the threat of Goa'uld, Replicators, Ori, Wraith, and who knows what else.

I was giddy with anticipation. _This could actually work._ The world could be safe. Id never get put in the line of fire. Who knows how many SG personnel teams could be saved? How much new invaluable tech could be acquired and introduced? I could even throw in updated designs for airships that could fight the Goa'uld better- ways the Stargate could be made even more secure.

Why, I could change the entire way the Stargate Program was operated on from the comfort of my living room. It would be a long and complicated series of operations, but the results would be so satisfying….

But first.

I had a solid season of TV to binge watch.

And three other stubborn nerds I had to convince to do this with me.

Joy.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**Let me know what you think about Howards actions. A slowish chapter, but laying the foundation for things to be built upon. Hope you like Howard patching things up with people he's wronged in the past.**

**As always, please leave reviews.**


	9. Chapter 9

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**Space/Time-Coordinates:** _**(September 13th 2005 [6:00 pm] -Sheldon & Leonard's apartment)**_

**Sheldon is on his spot on the couch, Howard and Raj are sitting next to him. Leonard is on his spot with the remote.**

**The guys are 6 episodes deep into a binge watch session. Every so often, someone shifts to adjust themselves.**

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Oh, this was bad.

So bad.

No wonder the show got taken off the air.

A few coffee cups were laid out on the table, I was taken the occasional notes on what happened in the show, but it was getting painful to watch. Sitting in one position became exhausting after a while, not to mention the amount of information I was processing. Binge watching a show was one thing. Trying to memorize every minute detail in the background was causing a migraine.

And we were on episode 16 of 22 in the first season.

Cheesy 80's effects, really bad acting, gigantic plot holes that were just glaring at me.

Ouch.

This was almost physically painful to watch.

"Why are you taking notes dude?" Raj asked.

"Oh you know," I said jotting down another point, this one about how there needed alternative gate defense fail safes in place, "researching and all that jazz."

"Researching?" Sheldon said. "Whatever for?"

"Well," I began, "Okay- so you know how in World War two the English government was working on cracking the enigma code?"

"Yeah." Leonard said. "It's basically what lead to the development of punch card computers."

"Okay so—" I placed my notepad down on the coffee table and started rubbing the muscles in my hand in a attempt to get a cramp out. "—So remember when the British government made a crossword puzzle and placed it in the paper that had a math theorem embedded in it?"

The guys stopped and thought for a bit. Sheldon, with his eidetic memory came to a conclusion first.

"Wait." He said. "Are you suggesting that Wormhole extreme is a similar program, and that its on air to find similar mathematical geniuses?"

"Maybe? I mean- if not then shouldn't it be up to us to make a good plan in the eventuality where humanity get access to alien technology?"

"You know," Raj said wagging his finger, just taken a sip of coffee, " that makes sense."

"What?" Leonard said. He paused the episode to focus on the conversation. "How does that even make sense?"

"Well", Raj began, "papers that are written have been looked upon years or even centuries later in mathematical proofs. Especially in astronomy. Take Galileo when he was explaining the mathematics of a Sun centered solar system. He built all his proof from Copernicus. Or even more recently Einstein - his work is based on the mathematics of Newton."

"Huh." Leonard leaned his elbows into his knees. "Valid point."

"So why would it be Wormhole extreme and not any other show?" Sheldon asked.

"Think about it." I said. "The ratings were horrible, so bad that it was canceled and scrapped, and then suddenly its back on the air? Like, come on guys, we follow all the major shows. If someone was going to be funding it again we would know - but instead some blacklisted group fronts the money. It's suspicious, you gotta admit."

"Now that you mention it, that is strange." Leonard said. He reached for his laptop and started googling the show. Raj meantime was getting on board with the idea.

"Oooh hey! We could all write a paper." Raj said.

"Write a paper?" Sheldon said, voice dripping condescension. "Where would we even submit it to? It would just be a collection of random improvements to do on the show which we would have to send to the executives and -"

Suddenly perking up, Sheldon came to a idea that changed his mind entirely. "Trains."

"What?" Leonard asked.

"Trains!" Sheldon said excitedly.

"That's it! That's how you get a wormhole to be a viable trans galactic transportation system! If you have a 40 minute window you could send a really long train through!" Sheldon was getting really into it. I guess that's all it took. Taking his favorite interest in trains and combining it with multi dimensional physics.

"Oh yeah, i'm all about this." Sheldon said. "We can each write up separate topics and then post it online and see what happens."

"Yeah i'm down with that," Raj said scratching his head, "it has bothered me that none of the away teams are using all terrain vehicles."

"It's still ridiculous." Leonard said. "The amount of energy it would take to make a Einstein-Roosevelt bridge connection, much less maintain its stability would literally be astronomical. There's just no way that's possible."

"Not if the Gate is made out of some sort of material that magnifies energy." I said.

"Yeah, but figuring out how to make that sounds like something for another day." Raj said. "Tell you what, you figure out the gear and vehicle situation, and I'll write about how using a gate light months or years away you could observe phenomenon that had passed earth."

"Huh. Yeah, I guess you could do that. Oh! You could also launch a orbital satellite to observe the atmospheres of far away exoplanets via spectroscopy." Leonard said.

"Ooh good point." Raj struck a thoughtful expression, with how many light years away some Stargate planets were, perhaps it would be possible to observe supernovae that happened during the Roman eras.

"Hey what are you picking Howard?" Raj suddenly brought up.

"Mmmm… I'm thinking that the entire way the base is set up is a terrible design. For starters the ramp leading to the gate could be a conveyer belt, I'd make it so much faster to load and unload."

In truth, most of my ideas were that- drastic redesigns to policies and strategic design layout that could theoretically help the away teams greatly.

But the base design was definitely the biggest flaw. Especially when it came to evacuations. The more efficient I could make it getting people and materials into the wormhole, the better chance they had on the other side.

"Well! Let's finish the episode and go to dinner!" Sheldon said. He'd probably turned out our conversation focusing instead on trains. And to be honest, it was a great idea. Wish I'd thought of that.

With a Stargate able to be open for a maximum of 38 minutes without having to draw on external power sources when it's cold fusion reactor started running low, the size of a train you could get through would be enormous.

Even cutting time down to account for the establishing of a stable connection, and human error, a half hour train trip could meet hundreds of tons of materials. Make it a hovertrain and you could potentially build a base camp on another planet in a matter of weeks.

"Oh yeah," Leonard said, "I have been getting hungry. Everyone still up for Cheesecake Factory instead of Big Boys?"

His face was hopeful, and it was easy to see why.

He hadn't seen Penny since last week when we delivered her stuff over. One of her coworkers quit, and another looked like might be leaving soon, so Penny was picking up extra shifts in the meantime.

"I'd be acceptable to sampling their BBQ Bacon Barbecue Burger again." Sheldon said.

"Yeah I'm fine with that," I said turning to Raj, "how about you buddy? You good with that?"

Raj signed. "I don't know…"

"What do you mean you don't know?" Leonard asked slightly worried. And for good reason. We'd only been to the Cheesecake Factory once, last week. If Sheldon didn't decide to make it his new Tuesday spot then Leonard could kiss his chances of seeing Penny goodbye. At least for the foreseeable future.

"It's just that last time," Raj began explaining, "she didn't even take my order and I got the wrong beverage too. I asked for Diet Coke and got Dr. Pepper."

"Aw come on, let's just give it one more shot?" Leonard said, almost pleading with his eyes. "The good old scientific two out of three?"

Raj thought for a moment. Good food, and a waitress he could actually talk to would be nice...But he could see Leonard struggling, really, really wanting to go, but not disappoint his friends either.

"Sure." Raj said defeated by his own kindness. "I guess we can go."

"Yes!" Leonard said. "I mean," he regained his celebratory composure and body language into something more appropriate, "thank you for agreeing to my request Rajesh."

"Enough jibber jabber fellas," Sheldon said adjusting himself back in his spot on the couch, "we have sci-fi to watch. Leonard! Put it back on."

* * *

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**Space/Time-Coordinates:** _**(September 13th 2005 [7:15 pm] -The Cheesecake Factory)**_

**Sheldon and Leonard sit on one end of the table, Howard and Raj- the other. They all have clipboards with graphing paper.**

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* * *

Sheldon was completely engaged in drawing. He was taking inspirations from every single train he could remember and combining them into one steampunk futuristic GateTrain.

A workable design was already taking place. Something that looked like a cross between a antique Victorian steam powered locomotive, and a Japanese Magnetic Levitating Bullet train.

Leonard was not drawing at all. He kept looking around without seeming too suspicious trying to catch a glimpse at Penny. We were sitting in her section, so she'd have to be by sooner or later. A hostess had brought all of us water in the meantime.

Raj meanwhile had a string of variable calculations going on one paper while a model of the milky way galaxy was on another paper. He was going through variables of spheres of observation depending on how many light years the Stargates were away.

I was about to start drawing, but instead was listing down criteria. What would make for a good off world base?

Defense was laughable, orbital bombardment could destroy bases now, much less plasma beams from goa'uld spaceships.

Offense really depended on if the base had enough beam defense weapons. From what I remember most things were just projectile weapons….. and only spaceship size guns could hurt ships. Either that, or barrage upon barrage of missles.

Escape then.

Evacuation is what had to be perfected to give the off world bases a shot.

The bases needed to have conveyor belts going towards the gate. In times of evacuation, the speed could be amped up so things would go through faster. Hell, if I got variable multi directional conveyor belts, like the ones used by the post office, the entire base could be evacuated within a small window of opportunity.

Maybe even have a conveyer belt on the other side of the gate and just have people run fake evacuation drills on the Empty Gate.

So many lives could be saved.

"Hello? Oh hey guys!" It was Penny. "Nice to see you again!"

"Mmmllrpp…. nice.. yeah." Leonard was, well, not quite so elegant with words seeing Penny for the first time in a week.

I've been bouncing between his and Raj's apartment while my house was being worked on. Hopefully it would only be a couple of days more until everything was cleared. Thursday or Friday maybe?

"Nice to see you too Penny." I said drawing her attention to me. When I saw her head turning I discreetly kicked Leonard in the shin. "Hey kinda random, but are you doing anything this weekend?"

"I don't think so." She handed out a handful of menus to the table. "I'll have to see what the work schedules look like later in the week. Why?"

"House warming party. My mom's place is finally almost refurbished."

"Maybe!" Penny was getting her things to scurry to another table, it looked like most of the seats were packed and Penny was overworked bouncing back and forth. "I'll let you guys know later! Oh and be back in a bit."

Leonard watched Penny walk away, hips swaying as she started to greet another table that just sat down.

"..Later…." Leonard mumbled, composure still not intact.

"Smooth." I said.

"What?" Leonard asked, still completely distracted.

"I said 'Smooth!'." My voice jerked Leonard out of his self induced trance. "Honestly how are you going to get this girl to like you enough to be receptive to the idea of going on a date if you can't talk to her?"

"Wait what?" Leonard was blinking furiously as his cognitive function came back online.

"Wait… did you just invite her over to your house this weekend?" Leonard was getting a bit angry. Time to de escalate this situation.

"You guys are going to be there too." I said, and watched confusion bloom on Leonard's face.

"I'm not hitting on her Leonard." I said and watched his face get even more scrunched up in confusion. Raj turned and looked at me to, no longer staring at the menu. "I am being a wingman for you."

Side Note- Leonard's confuses expression was hilarious. I'd have to remember this for later.

"In any case, I'm planning to ask another girl to come for the housewarming."

"What?" Leonard gestured and flailed his arms. "Who?"

"Leslie Winkle."

"She hates you dude." Raj said. "Like, hates you hates you."

"I'm aware of that." I said. "So how about we make a bet? If you ask Penny out at the party you win, if I get Leslie to come I do."

"Huh." Leonard said, actually interested. Not that he believed he could ask Penny out, it being far to soon in his opinion, but Leslie hated Howard. With a fiery passion. From his point of view he'd win easily.

Too bad I wasn't the original Howard. I wouldn't make it easy.

"I'll take that bet." Leonard adjusted his glasses. "What are the terms?"

"Wait," Raj suddenly interjected, "I have a better idea. Howard you need to ask Leslie out."

"Ooooooooohhhhh." Leonard said. "Yes let's go with that one."

"Wait what." Now it was my turn to be confused.

"It seems fair." Leonard said crossing his arms. "We both deserve a hard challenge or else a bet isn't worth it."

"Okay one, fair point." I said. "And two, counterpoint - no."

"Aww come on Howard," Raj said. Completely engrossed in the possible drama, "It will be interesting. Please? Otherwise Leonard isn't going to do it, you know how much of a coward he is."

"Hey!" Leonard exclaimed. "I'm not a coward! I'm just.. reserved when it comes to big life altering decisions."

We looked at each other.

"How about this, we decide the stakes later after we make sure both Leslie and Penny can make it." Raj said.

"That idea is…. acceptable." I said grudgingly. Leonard would probably say something embarrassing for me to do when I lost the bet. Let's face it, I'd have to do a lot to make Leslie date me.

But, it would be fun- so why not?

"Deal."

"Deal?"

"Deal." I said sticking my hand out across the table for a shake.

"Deal." Said Leonard shaking my hand. With this, it was official.

Now we just had to find out if Penny could make it. Oh and order food, I was starving.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**I like Howard and Bernadette in cannon. She's a little shrill for my tastes personally, but I like her.**

**This however is not the same Howard. He and Bernadette won't click in the same way.**

**Will he date Leslie? Who knows. I'm writing this story of a vague outline, but then sometimes things happen and I roll with it.**

**Next time you get to see Howard's new house, and see if his prodding Leonard makes him more confident, enough to ask out Penny.**

**As always leave reviews! **

**I was always planning on showing the new house, but HPfan 7-8 review spurred me to bring the timetable up sooner.**

**Hope you like it.**

**Cheers**


	10. Chapter 10

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**Space/Time-Coordinates: _(September 13th 2005 [7:30 pm] -The Cheesecake Factory)_**

**Same location, ten minutes later**

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Finally.

Ten minutes of waiting and Penny finally came back.

I like this girl, but damn, I was hungry. Hitting the gym up 5 days a week had boosted my metabolism to crazy levels. That, and I'm sure the rapid cellular growth and regeneration burnt calories like crazy.

"Oh my god, I'm soooo sorry guys." Penny said finally at our table. "But guess what? I've got good neeeews."

We'd drank all our water waiting. Sheldon was off tinkling in the bathroom. Leonard's glasses fogged up seeing Penny saunter over to our table, and Raj was suddenly mute.

"What's the good news?" Leonard asked, taking his glasses off and taking a microfiber cloth out of his button up shirt pocket to clean his glasses with.

"The bartender just quit!" Penny said, almost squealing and bouncing up and down. "I mean it's not good news right now, because my manager Andrew has taken over bar duty and he's piiiiissseed at everyone, but I got promoted!"

She squealed a bit and clapped her hands. "Oh! And I definitely have Saturday off, but Andrew says I should practice mixing drinks."

"That works." I said. "I've got a small combination microbar and coffee/tea bar built into the living room."

"You did?" Both Penny and Leonard asked at the same time.

"Yeah." I said, and then felt like I had to explain. "I don't drink too much, but I do like caffeine when I'm working. It would actually be more trouble to build a coffee area than it was a mini bar so I just went for that."

"What else have you had built?" Leonard asked.

"Come over on Saturday and find out." I said wryly.

The house would be great when it was finished, and the biggest thing, practical. Knowing what the guys thought of Previous Howard they probably assumed I'd have a sex dungeon or just make the inside full of collectible comics. Not that I didn't have a interest in those things, but again, I was striving to be practical.

Well, let them think that. They'd be in for a surprise.

"Oh! I suppose I should get your food." Penny said suddenly. Getting over the initial jolt of excitement, remembering she still had 5 more tables to bounce between.

"Sheldon and I will both have the Barbecue bacon cheeseburger, bacon, barbecue, and cheese on the side." Leonard said. "I'll have a sprite and he'll have a Diet Coke."

"Okay," Penny said and turned to our half of the table. Looking to Raj she asked, "and what about you hun?"

Raj predictably couldn't say anything. He turned and whispered in my ear, "Rib eye steak, mashed potatoes, and asparagus as a upsided side. Oh and can you make sure she knows the way I like it cooked?"

"Yeah I got you buddy." I said and turned to Penny.

"Two 6 oz rib eye steaks, mashed potatoes for both, asparagus for one side, cheddar broccoli for the other, and an appetizer of mild boneless buffalo wings with ranch sauce and tortilla chips with queso sauce for the table."

Penny, Leonard, and Raj looked at me. "Okay," they were still looking at me, "And a small bowl of salsa for Leonard."

"That's a lot of food Howard." Leonard said.

"Yeah, going to the gym has boosted my metabolism like crazy."

"Oh." Leonard looked surprised. "I didn't know you've been sticking with it."

"I get that though," Penny said nodding, "when I started being more active I was hungry all the time." She was finishing scribbling all our orders down.

"I didn't know you go to the gym." Leonard stated..

"Oh I don't." Penny closed her notebook with a snap. "I meant when I started dating and having marathon sex."

Leonard didn't know what to say. "Oh yeah. Uh huh."

"Anyways I'll be back with your food soon." Penny said cheerfully before walking away, a pep in her step.

"You don't think she's done a lot of that do you?" Leonard asked.

"What? Marathon sex?" I said. "With her figure and the amount we've seen her eat I'd have to say yes."

Leonard deflated glumly. "...Great…."

"Cheer up," Raj said, able to speak now that Penny had left, "maybe that one lunch we ate together was a statistical outlier and she actually controls her figure through diet alone."

"Do you really think that?" Leonard asked hopefully. After all, of Penny wasn't having marathon sex burn outs then more of a chance she'd be okay with dating him. Right?

"As if," Raj scoffed, "if I had a ass like that I'd be getting laid every other day of the week."

Leonard, distraught with the news, deflated even more glumly.

"Don't worry about it," I said. Shuffling my papers with vague bullet points and parts of a equation for ideal slope distribution I started clearing space for food, "I'm sure it will all workout someway."

"Thanks." Leonard said. He started shuffling his papers a bit and twisting his pen between his fingers.

Seeming to come to a internal decision, he nodded to himself, repositioned his clipboard, and started doodling equations for multi variable terrains.

We settled into a comfortable silence working. I was playing with various degrees of incline in sketches for off world bases. If got the right degree down, at least for gradual incline ramps built into the sides of the tunnels, during a emergency all supplies could be rolled into the gate.

Huge amounts of manpower could be saved if you speed up the rate of things positioned into the wormhole. Huge.

Idly when was experimenting with the difference between a 5 and 6 degree difference of slope, my phone buzzed.

A text message?

From who?

Most of my friends were sitting at the table next to me.

Oop. Looks It was the construction company I'd hired. They were all done.

Well, this would give me a few days to pick up, get new furniture and whatever.

"Hey Raj."

"Yeah?"

"Check it." I showed him my phone.

"Oh nice, they finished early." Raj looked sorta sad.

I was supposed to be staying over at his place the next couple of days to give Sheldon and Leonard a break, but it was a straight shot to Home if got on the highway from the Cheesecake Factory.

"Hey, can I come with and see it?" Raj asked. I couldn't tell if he was offering from the viewpoint of a concerned friend wanting me not to be alone walking into my moms old house, or selfishly not wanting to not be alone.

"Nah, I got it- I really want to surprise everyone Saturday."

* * *

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**Space/Time-Coordinates: _(September 13th 2005 [9:11pm] -The Wolowitz House)_**

**Howard by himself on the driveway, about to step inside.**

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* * *

Dinner was good.

Seeing the new and improved place was better.

There was still a lot left to do on my end, but the construction work got all the heavy labor over with.

The Wolowitz house was in eastern Pasadena California. Raj's parents paid for his apartment in western Pasadena, close to los angeles. Sheldon and Howard lived downtown from the university.

It was a two story house in a quiet neighborhood. No basement. Three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, and a few assorted odds and end closet and pantry.

After my father left, mom let herself go. She moved upstairs into what used to be dads office and turned the larger bedroom downstairs into a pantry. Not suddenly mind you, it gradually happened after years of emotional eating and hoarding.

Things had gradually fallen into disrepair, and so much dust and stains have built up in the carpet.

Which is why that was the first thing I had the construction crew rip out.

The tacky wallpaper too.

Walking into the door I looked into the living room.

Before it almost looked like something out of that 70's show. Shag carpet. Old floral wallpaper. The works.

Now it was one open concept area not including the stairs. The living room had long stretches of tile that looks like wood stretching all the way to the kitchen.

The formal dining room had its walls ripped down, as was the dividing wall to the kitchen. Parts of the kitchen were relocated. A peninsula stretched into what used to be the dividing wall. A table meant to six was stretched out horizontally in where the formal room used to be.

A small Bar made of reclaimed wood was jutting off where the entertainment stand used to be. The tv was mounted on the wall behind it.

The walls were a soft grey color. The trimmings and baseboards white. Modern looking furnishings and appliances were sprinkled through the kitchen. Most notably a new chrome fridge freezer combo with a water dispenser built in.

I'd need to go out and buy new bulbs, furniture, and give the place a good solid clean tomorrow. But all of this was mine. Not quite a bachelor pad, and definitely a far cry from what Old Howard could be expected to own.

Maybe someday this could be a good house to live with a significant other in?

I haven't really thought about that before.

I was Howard.

And provided nothing went wrong, I'd be safe on earth for the rest of my natural life.

Would I want to get married or be in a relationship? Was it even fair?

Odd things were happening with my body and brain, the reality is I could end up so smart it could be alienating. Like Brainiac in Superman. It could end up with me becoming a villain bent in some heinous quest to find someone worthwhile to communicate with on a intellectual level.

Or, the flip side. I could be like Gear in Static Shock. A genius when it comes to tinker tech, incredibly smart, but still able to relate to people because communication was so much more than just raw intelligence. That would be preferable.

Either way, I was different from past Howard as I liked smart girls. Actually someone like Leslie or Amy was perfect. Where before, Howard just cared about how hot someone was, tits and ass. I preferred having some deeper connection. Both heartfelt and of the mind.

I was still down for kinky things, if anything I was more kinky than previous Howard used to be, but I more so craved a deeper relationship without a one dimensional facet.

I signed tired. There was so much left to do.

The upstairs to scope out, for starters.

I should sleep on this. Sleep and mull over my feelings on the matter and plan out what to do. If I would ask out Leslie Winkle tomorrow.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**More details on the house later, plus setting stuff up for his party later in the week.**

**In any case, Howard now has the space, time, and some of the resources needed for working on private projects. That's not to say he will start building Tony Stark level tech in a garage soon (just isn't that smart yet), but small scale things are visible on the horizon.**

**Considering I strive for scientific plausibility- if not accuracy it might take me a little while until I can bullshit something that seems revolutionary enough, yet would be possible to make.**

**Why make it difficult for myself?**

**Apparently I suffer from wanting-to-make-accurate-science-fiction-isis**

**It's a terrible disease. Ends up with you doing hours of research into particle physics and quantum mechanics. Fun, but a weird way to spend a Tuesday.**

**Please leave reviews, I'd like to get some feedback before writing the next chapter.**


	11. Chapter 11

I dreamt of Naquadah.

It was the material the Stargate was made from and most Goa'uld technology. Almost all weaker to middle civilizations used it in some form. But what was it?

On the surface, the explanation was some super dense metal that amplified energy. But how could it do that? The laws of the universe dictated that energy couldn't be created or destroyed, just changed into matter. It could be refined into a liquid, and in that form it was the powersource of Goa'uld and Jaffa staff weapons.

Tossing and turning I dreamt of atoms.

Atomic weight in a certain volume of space was defined by mass, the amount of protons, neutrons, and to a lesser extent electrons all cluttered in together in a teeny weeny bit of space. Or that was at least the current human understanding of it.

Electricity was the flowing of electrons in a long chain- but even the concept of that was ethereal. Magnetism was tied to electricity. How did it work?

Light was electrons jumping in their orbits, literally teleporting through space, bypassing time, giving off energy. Maybe Naquadah was the same?

Pulling the blanket closer I dreamt of dimensions.

Different dimensions.

Different perceptions?

I needed a different way to ponder the problem.

In my minds eye I pictured what a atom of Naquadah would look like.

Extremely dense, forged in the heart of a dying sun. A supernova of immense proportions.

How did it amplify energy?

The most stable element was uranium, and even it decayed over time. Large atoms just didn't have the force necessary to hold it, the entire bottom of the periodic table were man made materials that existed in Planck scale time frames.

Visualizing Naquadah again, I dreamt of its vibrational structure.

So dense, the positive core attracted storm clouds of electrons into the center, shrinking the volume it occupies. Compressing it again and again. It was…. beeping?

Wait, beeping?

*** Beep Beep Beep Beep***

The alarm clock woke me.

The crystal clear thoughts, astounding mental clarity faded away. I woke up with all the mental coherence of a caramel cube melting in the winter.

Which was a shame.

For a moment there, it felt like I was close to a breakthrough. Something that could revolutionize science in ways the ancients could even imagine.

Oh well.

Maybe later.

Getting out of bed I wandered to the kitchen and started coffee brewing. It was really early in the morning, the sun just shining over the horizon and through the blinds in the window above the sink.

It was Wednesday my dudes.

Why the fuck was I awake this early.

Rubbing the eye crusties off my face, and hearing the coffee pot begin it's cycle of hissing percolation, I meandered upstairs eager to check my new lab out.

Maybe it wasn't right for me to ask out Leslie, I thought walking up the stairs, I did like her sorta- but she mostly hated me. I was after all, only doing this to prompt Leonard to ask Penny out.

I had to be the bigger man and lose the bet. It was the right thing to do.

Turning the corner, I got my first glance at the upstairs. Previously, there was a full bathroom and three bedrooms up here. When Mom and Dad were married, they were meant for kids.

Then the divorce happened, and Mom moved out of the master into a unused bedroom up here. The third room became her office.

A Jewish work from home Accountant. Extremely stereotypical, but there you have it. She started it as a side hustle, working a bit and able to be a stay at home mother. After Dad left it became her full time job.

This floor had so many mixed memories. Some good, most bad. Which is why I had the entire place ripped bare and renovated.

The bathroom still stayed, albeit heavily renovated with new everything, tiling, shower, fixtures, bathtub.

My room and my moms room had the connecting wall ripped away. The entire room elongated, and turned into a lab. I'd have to change the door myself, making it something more secure with multiple deadbolts, but right now it was plain and full of potential.

The walls I had painted white, and then large sheets of acrylic glued on. The result? Over 50 feet of whiteboard space for mathematics. I'd have to bring in a workshop table for building electronics, but with the new industrial ventilation I could solder and mess with a torch without worrying about fumes.

My next big project that went here was going to be a secure supercomputer.

Before I could make advanced tech, before I could make a energy generator to avoid suspicion of a high electric bill, I needed some medium to put ideas down in place.

Something that if the NID came storming the house in the dead of night would be secure and not give them weapons. Something that could potentially self destruct.

Luckily I was a polyglot.

Even luckier, was I grew smarter by the day.

Howard knew English, Russian, Mandarin, Klingon, French, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, and binary coded ASCII. Not well but he knew them.

I would get smarter than humanly possible eventually. If I learnt the languages fully, and became as fluent as Howard believed he was in the past, then I could invent a extremely complicated computer language and code the supercomputer in that.

But I must make the same mistakes as The Ancients, not securing their materials, and falsely believing that they were the top of the totem pole.

Sometimes low tech fixes were the best. It might be a simple solution, but hey it works.

All that would be for literally another day.

I still wanted to finish getting new furniture, and was actually looking forward to this house party.

* * *

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**Space/Time-Coordinates:** _**(September 14th 2005 [12:03]- Caltech physics labs)**_

**Howard preparing to knock on Leslie's door before lunch. She is messing with the angle of a laser to make Ramen noodles.**

_**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**_

* * *

**Knock knock**

"Hey Leslie, do you have a moment?" I asked, nervous energy making me rub my neck in anticipation. This conversation could go either way, good or absolutely terrible, and i yearned to make a positive impression.

"Oh hey Howard," Leslie said looking up from her experimental table. The laser was beaming through a series of prisms again and Leslie was meticulously adjusting the angle on one, "Yeah just give me a second."

She adjusted the reflector prism using a extremely precise gyroscopic wrench _just_ so, and turned the laser off. That was super dangerous to do.

"What's up?" Leslie said, taking off her safety glasses.

"Okay so," I began, "it's kinda a long story so promise to hear me out first."

"I make no such promises," Leslie said, suspicion drawing on her face, " last time you said that the funding I granted was used to build a six breasted robot."

"Ouch." I winced. "Yeah, fair point."

That was a low moment in my memories.

"So long story short, Sheldon and Leonard has a hot neighbor move in, Leonard's crushing on her and we're on semi friendly terms, I'm having a housewarming party after the renovations Saturday aaaaaaaaaand at dinner yesterday we _kinda_ got into a bet that if I would ask you out there, at the party, then at the party Leonard would ask _her_ out."

Leslie gaze hardened, her eyebrows tightened and body language angered. The cool anger of '_I can't believe this motherfucker' _that came from repeatedly being around a person who pissed you off.

"_Which is why I'm telling you now!" _I stammered out. "I do want to invite you, but it wouldn't be fair under false pretenses, and I thought you'd want to come since at the worst case you'd get free booze and maybe a excuse to trash my house, but I totally get it you don't—"

"— I accept." Leslie interrupted. "You've been acting better so you deserve a chance, but I swear if this is a ploy," she faced me and wagged her finger sternly, " I'll take your word for it and trash your place after drinking all your liquor."

"Deal." I said relieved. "I'll make sure the guys behave."

"You better." Leslie said. "Who else is coming?"

"Uhhh… well there's Sheldon, Leonard, Raj will definitely drop by. Penny's going to be hitching a ride with Leonard, I was thinking of inviting Kripke too."

"Doesn't Sheldon hate him?" Leslie asked.

"Yeah." I said. "Pretty badly actually."

"I thought worse case scenario we could drink and tease Sheldon." Shifting a bit I scratched my head. "I've also got a spare bedroom and some couches to crash on if everyone drinks too much."

"Huh." Leslie said interested. "Well it's better what I had planned." She turned her back at me dismissively and went back to working. "I like Schnapps. Peach preferably."

"I can do that." I promised, and left the lab.

Ooookay. That went better than I expected. Turning at a corner I rounded on the straightaway to the main cafeteria.

Time to prepare for merciless teasing and tell the guys I reneged on the bet and voluntarily choose to lose.

With a set jaw, and firm shoulders I walked to lunch.

Time to face the music.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**This took longer than I thought. A shorter chapter but I've been busy binge watching Game of Thrones in preparation for the final season.**

**Figured getting anything out is better than nothing considering my typical posting schedule is weekly or so.**

**Cheers**


	12. Chapter 12

"You lost to a girl?" Raj said.

"Whoa Raj. That's kinda sexist." I replied. "But yeah, I lost."

_Intentionally, but they didn't know that._

Why? Well partly I honestly didn't care.

I wanted Leonard to be able to get more confident and if it meant looking a bet on purpose- I'd do it. For the low, low price of embarrassing myself for free.

"So what's the verdict?" I asked.

"Gimme a moment." Leonard said. "I'm thinking."

"How about, Howard has to give up all his LEGO?" Sheldon said pointedly, definitely only interested in himself.

"Sheldon . . . I'm not going to give up all my LEGO for a bet, especially not the Millennium Falcon I know you've been eying."

"Drat." Sheldon said. "Well it was worth a shot. You fellas decide whatever between you, I've lost interest." He said, going back to his lunch.

"By the way how's your part of the paper coming along?" I asked the guys sitting around the table.

"I'm done. It was fun, ive developed a system for triangulating various satellites over parts of the galaxy. Both to scan for new gate worlds and how habitable they are before Dialing them, but it became a therapeutic exercise imagining seeing the same supernova light the Romans saw." Raj said, and changing the topic. "So you're sure she's coming, just not as a date?"

Howard signed exasperated. "Yes, Leslie's coming. Probably to drink all my booze and laugh at me, but coming regardless."

"Got it!" Leonard said. "Costume party!"

"Wait - what?"

"I've figured out what your punishment for losing is going to be." Leonard said haughtily. "Your costume is going to be Tarzan."

"With the leopard print thong?" Raj said cracking a grin and laughing. "Nice."

"Are you serious right now?" I said. "After I invited Leslie, Penny, and Kripke? I'd just started making them like me, what the hell dude, this is going to set everything back."

"Now hold on," Sheldon said, paying attention now that he knew his arch enemy would be there. "You never told me that Kripke would be coming." He said accusingly.

"We're all the same department," I said, "I figured why not use this as a olive branch."

"Clever." Sheldon said and gave a fake dry social laugh turning his head. "Leonard, I don't want to go anymore."

"You have to Sheldon." Leonard said tiredly.

"But I don't want to."

"Hey." I said. "View it as a non-optional social obligation."

"Well . . . When you put it that way. . . I guess I have to accept." Sheldon said. Still a bit muffled from having to be around Kripke, but the environment should be stimulating enough to make that a non-issue.

"Oh and Howard," Leonard spoke up, " I've got the math down accounting for varying terrain differences and counting the extended range of Vehicles for safe Gate distance perimeter travel."

"Oh nice, send it to me. I'll get it all compiled and post it online later." Howard said.

Good news.

The massive paper was almost done.

I'd managed to get full on designs for varying types of bases down pat, and a few suggestions on what to do with spaceships to make everything more streamlined, safer, and more efficient.

Unfortunately, most of it couldn't happen due to budgetary constraints.

It was the University funding issue all over again.

"Wait," I said, "Do you just want to turn this into a costume party? I don't want to be the only guy in a Leopard print G-string while everyone else stares."

"I mean we can." Raj said looking at Leonard. They had a silent debate with their eyes. "But im not wearing a Thong. Everyone has costumes so we can make something work. That I'd be down for."

"I'll let Penny know." Leonard said getting misty eyed.

"Riiiiiggght. I'm sure it has _nothing_ to do with seeing Penny in a early Halloween costume." Howard said knowingly.

"I don't know what you mean." Leonard said poking at his peas with a fork a little too energetically. So distracted with appearing normal he was squishing them unintentionally coating the side of his juice carton. "You were saying something about figuring out how the Wormhole gate generator worked or something?"

Clever.

Trying to distract me.

It worked.

"_Well. . . _I don't remember bringing _that_ up, but I do have a idea of how it works." Howard said. "In fact, I've got a pretty good idea of how to recreate most of the materials its made from."

"Pfffttt"

Sheldon let loose a combination of a snort and a laugh.

"What does, what does that mean?" Howard said.

"Please." Sheldon said. "The day you figure out a new element is the day I give up on String Theory."

" . . . "

"That sounds like a bet."

"A bet?" Sheldon said and gave a dry laugh again. " You couldn't beat me even on a bad day."

"I'll take that bet."

Leonard peered at me over his glasses, eyebrows furrowed in concern. "You sure you want to do that? You just lost a bet, and im letting you off easy." He jabed his thumb over, gesturing at Sheldon. "He won't."

"Ehhhh… Ill handle it."

"Okay partner." Sheldon said. He pulled his chair a little closer to the table. "What are the terms."

"If I lose, I become your bitch for the year." I said. "Any non department esential time I have will be allocated to you for the duration of the work day."

"Acceptable. I like these terms," Sheldon said, "It will be handy to have a engineer disk jock monkey at my beck and call. What are your terms in the unlikely situation you ever win?"

"So remember when you told us your mother had you tested?"

"Yes." Sheldon signed. "I have a eidetic memory. I remember everything."

"And you were only tested that one time?" I pried.

"Yes. Just the once." Sheldon rolled his eyes. "Where are you going with this?"

"Almost there, don't get your panties in a twist." Howard said. Sheldon did a double glance, firstly not believing that Howard could say such a thing, about to offer a rebuttal, and remember the idiom was a social phrase, a bit sexist, but acceptable.

"So, modern scientific testing requires the running of multiple tests to confirm or deny phenomenon. As you've only been tested once, how do you know the results are true?" Howard said.

Sheldon froze still at that. Yes. . . How could he be sure?

Sheldon brought up a hand, index finger pointed, about to make a counterpoint when Howard started talking again.

"I propose, that if I win, you get retested a minimum of 2 other times at different locations with seperate doctors to cut down on the amount of observational bias."

Sheldon slumped a bit. Maybe that was true? He was tested for insanity, perhaps the doctors had misdiagnosed him? Did he really have a problem?

No.

That couldn't be it.

It was everyone else.

Those who wasn't smart enough to deal with Sheldon's level of intellect.

"Fiddlesticks." Sheldon said. "When you phrase it that way, I really don't have a rebuttal. Personally speaking, I think testing is completely unnecessary. However I do see you have a point. "

"Alrighty then. First one to figure it out wins."

"Deal." Sheldon said.

* * *

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**Space/Time-Coordinates:** _**(September 17th 2005 [3:00 pm]- The Wolowitz House)**_

**The day of the Party.**

_**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**_

* * *

Howard was upstairs in his makeshift math lab admiring a convoluted mess of scribbles on the whiteboard walls. The paper for wormhole extreme was posted last afternoon, he had a cup of tea peacefully sitting on the side table, and the whiteboard had so many mathematic scribbles it reassembled a abstract painting.

Moreso as time went on.

But, It was done.

Howard had found out how Naquadah was created.

Sheldon was so going to eat it.

Naquadah was what made advance tech work. In liquid form it was the power source of the goa'uld staff weapons. In solid form it made up the Stargate.

It was a metal unlike any in the universe.

Because it wasn't.

Not technically.

See, it all started with that dream I've had of Naquadah. So intense, that when I awoke I had a headache. I've been having headaches waking up, and at some random points during the day now too- and then a few hours later when they'd subsided scientific principles were easier to grab.

I guess it was new neurons growing and forming connections. The intellect jump was exponential and not linear like I'd previously assumed.

But then again, Naquadah wasn't what I assumed it was either.

Providing the math was correct, materials that had a Nano Atmospheric Quantum Undulating Amplification Dynamic Atomic Halo could be formed from the creation of a simultaneous binary star going critical.

Something say, like a blue giant binary pair going supernova would form a colliding wave where the gravitation and heat were so intense, the metal formed afterwards was literally quantumly charged.

It explained why it was so rare.

Binary pairs were common, but the ones with the exact conditions weren't.

Utilizing a weird quirk, from literal quarks, any incoming energy of a certain caliber would be amplified and set out in dual.

One wave of electrons in a electrical arc became two. A lump of Naquadah would turn those two to four, and then eight, and so on until it lost molecular cohesion and the bonds ruptured violently.

Which is where liquid Naquadah came in.

The metal amplified electrical, magnetic, and various forms of quantum effects.

Turning the souls metal into a liquid one could conduct a magnetic current through it, which would then be amplified, and through a set of coils converting it back to electrical energy. In liquid form it had a much higher energy capacity than solid.

The Jaffa staff was literally powered by the technology superior, but principally identical equivalent of a 60's crank radio. The fire trigger sets a small rechargeable battery to produce a field, which then gets amplified and produces enough electricity for a plasma burst.

Damn.

And here I thought it was something more intense.

It made the Jaffa a lot less intimidating when their weapons were the tech equivalent of what a beer drinking dad who loves to fish would take out on a lake.

And now the image of Teal'k wearing cargo shorts and flip flops with socks would be stuck in my head.

Indeed.

On a flip side, there was a very interesting quirk hidden here that most people wouldn't notice.

Theoretically, and only theoretically mind you, if you could create micro black holes- it would be possible to make something akin to vibranium by speeding a binary pair of dense newly formed white dwarves and smash them directly into each other at intense speeds.

Maybe if I moved the gravitational vector over to—

"— hello? Howard? I'm down here!" Raj shouted.

He was downstairs ? How did he get in?

"I used the spare key you gave me a while back, hey, I'm gonna go ahead and put these snacks in the kitchen okay?" He shouted again.

Well.

That part is explained.

I kept the same front door. Everything else is changed, but all my friends have a key.

"Coming!" I shouted. "I'll be right downstairs!"

Walking toward the door I took one last look into the room before locking it. I'd go downstairs and help set stuff Raj set stuff up before everyone else showed up.

There was that weird hint that vibranium could be made, one that I strongly wished to explore before showing the math off to anyone.

Screw how difficult it would be. Vibranium was a game changer. One that nobody in this universe had.

And if I had my way, never would.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**Research paid off! The Naquadah theory I've invented seems semi plausible and totally makes sense in my mind for goa'uld weapons and energy. It's also (as far as I know) original? **

**The goa'uld Invent something from scratch like fusion? **

**No. It would be too much work to maintain and I just don't see that happening.**

**Bastardize something together to build the high energy version of idiot proof tech? I see that being the norm. Especially when it comes to the weapons they arm the Jaffa with.**

**I've gotten sick which is what lead to this late not as long as I'd like chapter. Swollen throat. Urgh. Tea and lozenges can only do so much.**

**What are your cats ideas on what Naquadah is/works? I'm curious to know peoples ideas on possible workable ideas on alien tech. **


	13. Chapter 13

"Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!"

The crowd was shouting. Everyone was arranged in a semi circle in the living room cheering the contenders on.

Howard and Raj were shotgunning a Red Bull after a large doubleshot of Gin. They were neck and neck, close to a tie, when Raj in a effort to win poked a larger hole on the side and promptly choked on the increased flow rate. The spectators cheered some more, and a voice in the background could be heard saying "pay up, your guy lost."

Coughing and sputtering put the energy drink Rajesh grinned goofily. "I love you dude."

Howard meanwhile, was still going strong, two more seconds left - and he drained his can! Amidst cheers and applause Howard stumbled over to Raj, holding onto him for support. "I love you too dude." He paused for a moment and let loose a great belch.

"Huh, tastes like mint." He said, smacking his lips. "I haven't even _had_ mint today, that's weird."

"That was fucking great man." A tall bearded behemoth of a man said. "You guys chugged all off it!" He said excitedly.

"Thanks! . . . I want to say Bert? Right?" Howard said swaying a little, looking at his brunete beard. "I didn't even know you made your own gin."

"Yeah it is Bert, from the geology department," He said, "But it wasn't Gin- it was moonshine."

"Moonshine?"

"Yeah- you should be feeling it _really _kick in soon."

That means that Raj and I had just chugged two shots worth of concentrated ethyl alcohol.

I had the realization that we were going to get _fuuucked_ up tonight.

And that was the precise moment Raj vomited on my shoes.

"Come on." Bert said, grabbing Raj by the arm and physically pulling him to the back deck. "Let's get him some air."

I should back up and explain how we ended up in this situation.

A few hours ago Raj came and helped me start setting up for the party. Chips, dip, delivery pizza, the whole nine yards.

Sheldon, Leonard, and Penny were going to arrive together, with Leslie and Kripke sometime afterwards. It was going to be a quiet houseparty, nothing crazy or too intense.

But then Penny invited a DJ friend she had, who in turn invited a few more people, Leslie was talking with her friends in the pharmacy department and they decided to tag along, Kripke ended up inviting the whole geology department, and everything snowballed from there.

The result?

A house party for the ages.

And in the commotion, the Bet of me stripping down to a leopard print man thong were forgotten.

The Pharmacy department ended up bringing a legal, but experimental MDMA ecstasy analog substitute, meant for PTSD treatments.

It ended up being passed out like candy on Halloween.

The Geology department came with pizza and beer. Nothing bad could come of that, they were boring wallflowers right? But Bert was in the department.

And Bert brought his homemade Moonshine.

Somebody else brought poker cards, twister, and Cards Against Humanity. There was a slip and slide set up in the backyard along with a beer pong table.

Penny was set up inside, bartending on my mini bar, charging a few dollars a drink. Leonard was helping her with the speed and grace of a Russian ice skater- guess the ecstacy helped him relax. The two were bobbing their head to the heartbeat throb of music- a mix of hip hop and dubstep.

And then someone from the pharmacy department had the swell idea of crushing up the pills, and using them to coat the rims of glasses.

The Neurology department heard of the shenanigans, and brought along various multiphase color changing strobe lights. Meant to test and scan for changes in brain activity while wearing a electrode cap, it was being used to provide complex ever shifting party mood lighting.

Like being in a cloud, if that cloud was a acid dream. Dreamt by Salvador Dali. While he himself was on all the Drugs.

Needless to say, the party rocked.

"Oh sweet," Bert said, "the bench is free." He pulled us into a small side bench I had on the rear deck and handed Raj a bucket. The sound was quieter outside, even if you could still here the music grooving.

"But yeah man, I make my own moonshine. Got a liquor license and everything. I've been making it ever since my wife died." Bert said.

Wife died?

"I didn't even know you were married." Howard said.

"It was a few years ago." Bert said. "She and my daughter died during childbirth. It's actually what lead me to making Matilda's moonshine."

"Huh. I did not know that about you." Howard said, swaying side to side lightly, as if on the deck of a pitched ship in moderate swells. Rajesh has fallen asleep, face in a small bucket. Luckily it was devoid of vomit.

"What, you didn't think I was just a kick ass geologist and rock climber did you? I'm 41 dude, it's completely different from you physics department hires in your 20's."

Bert chuckled as Raj started falling off his seat. With one strong arm he pushed him back upright and leant him against the smooth plastic siding of the house.

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about." Bert said. "Kripke told me about everything going on since your mom died, we go rock climbing once a month and hunt for fossils, I'll tell you this - when my wife passed I was alone and didn't have much of a support network, it's what got me into beekeeping and home distilling, but it could have gone really badly otherwise."

I didn't know what to say.

He and Kripke rock climbed together? Bert was married before? Was I too drunk and overthinking things?

"Is that why you named your shine Matilda?" I slurred.

"The exact reason actually, it was supposed to be our daughters name, but that's not my point Howard."

Bert looked at me with a type of glance that only those who have been through extreme pain can experience. The glance of a kindred soul, having been at a similar point in its journey wishing to impart the wisdom of misteaks.

"My point is you've got good friends, like this guy here," he said slapping Raj's shoulder, "you've got friends that care about you. I know things suck right now, and they will for a while, but there are things to live for."

My throat choked up and tears welled in my eyes. It might have been chalked up on just feeling emotional or having the ecstasy kick in, or choking on some spit, but in that moment I was speechless, only able to nod.

"Now then!" Bert said slapping his thighs loudly and using that momentum to stand up. "I'm going to make sure people don't drink too much of my moonshine and get alcohol poisoning. You guys take care. Let's go bowling next friday or something?"

And with that, and the sound of the sliding glass backdoor, he was back inside.

I should… do something. Something I should do. . . Oh! Get Raj dragged to the spare guest room upstairs.

Carefully laying him down on the bench, careful to set him on his side, I wobbled over to the backdoor and stepped in. A veritable scene of madness greated me.

The Neurologists have figured out that their adaptive optic program that converts sound into light variations, with a little bit of fine tuning, made for a perfect Rave lighting. It was hooked up to the DJ booth now, and the party was swinging in earnest.

Sheldon was drunk on Long Island Iced Tea's and holding a geology book while telling stand up jokes about volcanoes and giggling over the pronunciation of the word Geode.

Kripke was covered in glow sticks, rolling hard on E, and dancing by the door distributing glow sticks to people he'd bump into.

Leonard and Penny were full on making out while people cheered them on. Leslie was throwing popcorn at them from a distance, trying to see if she could distract them.

Amy Farrah Fowler was grinding on the dance floor full on feeling the effects of ecstasy, completely filter free and unrestricted.

Wait, hold up.

Amy was here?

What was she doing here?

A moment later it clicked.

Of course, the entire neurology department was here - Amy included.

This might be the first party she's actually been invited to, in a way, but she was definitely enjoying herself either way. She was grinding pretty hard on a girl that was twerking and feeling her up.

My god, she is such a repressed bisexual.

The ecstasy id unintentionally taken was really kicking in now, Raj on the other hand mostly had moonshine in his system, having vomited the red bull up. Guess he wouldn't be awake anytime soon. Which was a shame.

This was the best party of my life.

Bopping and jiving my way across the impromptu dance floor that was my living room I got Kripke's attention, being the closest.

"Hey! Hey Kripke!" I shouted, striving to make myself heard over the music.

"Howwwaaaaawwwdd!" Kripke said, leaning back comically and giving a high five. " Kwazy party dude!"

"Thanks! Hey could you help me drag Raj to the bedroom?"

"What's with him?"

"He's a lightweight, I think he just needs a chance to sleep it off." I said and gestured outside. "He's passed out on the deck."

"Okay!" Kripke said pumped, excited to be moving. "Hey lemme get Leslie, we could use some hewp." Kripke started laughing heavily as if the imagery of Rajesh Koothrappali passes out was the funniest thing ever.

"Alright! Let's do that!" I said.

* * *

_Someone was fucking on my bed._

And I had a sneaking suspicion who.

After we got Leslie involved and we're on the way out the door, Penny and Leonard had made a dash towards my bedroom. As they were gone, and the door was locked, the explanation seemed elementary.

They were having hot, passionate, molly fueled sex and probably would be for a few hours.

Good for them. I wanted Leonard and Penny together, admittedly not in this way, but it works maybe. Ehhh the fallout would be a issue for later.

"So where are you gonna sleep?" Leslie asked as we were getting Raj roughly positioned in the spare bedroom upstairs. He was immobile and refused to move. Getting him upstairs was like dragging a passed out calf.

"In there." I gestured behind my with my thumb and whipping the sweat off my brow. It was both hot from exercise and from so many people dancing downstairs.

"Mowe bedrooms?" Kripke asked, flipping the light switch off and carefully closing the door. He had the fire though to grab a bottle of water and leave it within Raj's reach for when he awoke.

"Small personal lab actually." I said, shaking my head.

"Weally?" Kripke said interested.

"Mind if we take a look?" Leslie asked. "I'm feeling the urge to do math."

Oof.

Why did I say that?

Right now the walls were covered with the formulas and advanced mathematics I'd spend the last two days laboring on showing exactly how Naquadah was created.

I wasn't worried about them finding the hint about vibranium. The hint was hidden in a hole so deep in the math it was more likely you'd find the entrance to Wonderland first.

"Sure, but don't freak." Howard said. "I've got this long term bet going with Sheldon that I think I might have won."

"Uhhh huh," Kripke said, " and why shouldn't we fweak?"

"It's pretty big stuff- I think I may have discovered a new element along with classification of matter." I said, and with that unlocked the door, letting us pile into the room.

* * *

"No way." Leslie said, checking over the math for the fourth time and finding it correct. "We have to be getting punked."

"I know." Kripke said in awe. "But it is his handwriting. And this math is Wight Yeaws away fwom what Sheldon can do."

For the last ten minutes, Leslie and Kripke were looking over the massive amount of math I had written on my whiteboard walls.

50 feet of whiteboard detailed the exact formation of Naquadah, how the gravitational fluctuations allowed for the quantum hiccup to form, how the temperature has to be in a precise range that only blue supergiants could burn at, and how the coloring dual supernova wave impacting rewrite the current understood laws of special relativity.

Kripke and Leslie shared a glance and seemingly agreed on something instantly.

"Someone else needs to see this."

They both went downstairs in a effort to find more physicists to double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, and hexalaterally check the math.

Was this too much?

I mean, this was literally paradigm shifting math right here, the same as when Copernicus said the solar system was heliocentric, and not the geocentric people believed at the time. But that was the thing about Science and Math, it didn't care what people thought, it just was.

I opened Pandora's box with inviting them into the lab.

At least, on the plus side, I didn't have half remembered future events scribbled out. Or drawings of the Stargate. Basically everything incriminating was nice and safe in my head.

Well.

Relatively speaking.

A few minutes later a few physicists who i've seen around the various departments, Bert, and a Leonard /Penny with sex hair combo stumbled into the room.

"Hewe it is." Kripke said. "We checked the math, but need a couple mowe opinions."

"What do you think, is this possible?" Leslie asked Bert.

Bert looked at the math. Mentally crunching the numbers in his head his eyebrows furrowed. He looked over the wall that had the name, classification, and sketch of how the atomic formula and composition of Naquadah would be.

"Nano Atmospheric Quantum Undulating Amplification Dynamic Atomic Halo?" He said. "Well, being a molecular geologist who specializes in the study of elemental creation - I have to say it's plausible - but id have to run numerous simulations to be sure."

"Is this how all scientist party?" Penny asked.

We had known her for all of a few weeks, and in the time she was dealing with the breakup of her Ex. Needless to say this party had broken her out of a depressive funk.

"What?" Leonard said adjusting his glasses. Squinting at the boards and taking all the exotic math in. "No, no. . . were usually much more tame, but when nerds party its all out. . ." he said absently. "Howard, did you do this?"

"Yeah." I said. "Yes I did. Took me two days and a lot of coffee, but the idea took hold and it wouldn't go away."

"Do you know what you did?" Leonard asked.

I snorted a laugh. "Completely crushed Sheldon when he finds out?"

"Well that too, but look," He gestured towards the board, " You just solved the world energy crisis."

"That sounds like a important thing." Penny said, brushing some hair off her face looking interested. "Isn't that the kinda thing you win awards for?"

"Win awads? The Nobel Pwize is nothing against this!" Kripke said. "This could fix Humanaties enerwy pwoblem fow good, this is a histowic moment in that case."

"Wait," Kripke paused and thought for a second, a historic moment? Something of that caliber really ought to be documented, "I gotta get a selfie and powst twis on myspwace."

"Oooh me too!" Penny said. "I want to be in the news!"

"Why don't we all just take pictures and selfies?" Lesli said. "If we post this online, other people can do the fact checking too. Plus my hair looks amazing tonight"

"Good point." Kripke said, taking out his cell phone. "Cheewse." He snapped a goofy selfie with the most iconic part of the board- the composition of the Naquadah atom as the backdrop, and posted it on his Myspace and Facebook account.

Within a half hour, most people at the party had snapped pictures of the entirety of the room and posted it online.

Alrighty then.

Stargate Command was definitely going to catch wind of this.

Might as well cut loose and enjoy the party.

* * *

**The next morning**

* * *

The alarm was buzzing.

"Five more minutes. ." I grumbled, swinging my hand trying to find the silencer. To my surprise it wasn't there. Instead of slapping the snooze button I had open palmed slapped Sheldon in the face.

A very passed out Sheldon.

On the living room floor. Where visual evidence suggest we passed out on last night.

What happened last night again?

The buzzing sounded again, this time more shrill and annoying.

Wait. . . that wasn't a alarm clock. That was the doorbell.

"Gimme a moment!" I yelled, standing up and looking around the house.

It was a hot mess.

There were panties hanging on the side lamp, pizza boxes were splattered on the floor. Leslie wearing only a bra and pants was passed out on the couch where I woke up. It looked like we were spooning.

Kripke was wearing only tighty whitey underwear and covered in sharpie graffiti. His face had a Handlebar mustache and his chest had some pretty bad scribbles covering it.

Sheldon was passed out on the floor with a pile of geology books, like a Tolkien dragon guarding his treasure hoard.

Leonard and Penny were covered in a blanket laying on the floor behind the other couch. I was almost scared to pull it off because it seemed like they were naked underneath.

The front door kept ringing.

"Give me a moment!" I yelled throught the door, walking closer so I could crack it open while it was still chained and see who was there.

Grasping the doorknob I opened the door a crack, and saw a Middle aged man in a Air Force costume.

"The costume party was last night," I said, "were all hung over and partied out. You're too late man."

His forehead crinkled a bit in frustration. "Are you Howard Wolowitz?" He said.

"Yuuuuuuup. And who are you?"

"My name is Colonel Richard Williams," He said and passed me a folder through the slit in the door, "This is not a costume and here are my credentials."

I took the folder and looked at it, rubbing my eyes blearily still waking up. MIT graduate…. Exemptionary military service… high governmental clearance.. And a top secret consent form?

Wait.

This wasn't a guy in a costume.

This actually was the Air Force coming to talk to me. Possibly about the paper we wrote, probably about the pictures that got on the Internet last night.

Fuck. This was actually happening.

"Son," Colonel Richard said, "can I have a moment of your time?"

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**This is my biggest ( and personal opinion) best chapter to date. I've only been writing this for what, a month or so? But it feels like if nothing else, the dialogue has gotten more organic and fluid.**

**I've taken some creative liberty with Bert the geologist. He seemed like such a One Dimensional character in the show, and seemed like the perfect fit for a appearance like this. **

**Plus, in cannon, Kripke actually rock climbs, so it's not too unimaginable for Bert and Kripke to be rock climbing buddies.**

**Please leave me some reviews. I like to hear what people think about how this story is heading. Shinigamiluffy- the next chapter will be partly from Stargate Commands reactions. I would have done it in this chapter, but it was already getting long for me (considering mine are 2k typically)**

**Ive also decided that some of the formats that look really good on the computer, look terrible in Mobile, so sometime soon I might go back and edit the structure of a couple chapters. **

**Cheers, **

**ArtAddictedArchitect**


	14. Chapter 14

"Sure," Howard said, "but not right now—"

_Especially not with so many people passed out inside._

"—It's way too early, and it's Sunday."

"Fair enough." Colonel Richard said. "But this is urgent, we need to speak with you and the rest of your team within the next 12 hours."

"My . . . Team?" Howard asked, still waking up and needing caffeine to function. Bleary eyes blinked back sleep as he focused on the Colonel in front of him.

The colonel in question signed tiredly and rubbed his forehead. "The numbnuts you wrote a paper with recently."

Ah.

Those numbnuts.

The numbnuts I wrote a paper with about Wormhole extreme tweaks, ideas, and redesigns.

The numbnuts who were currently passed out in various states of dress on the floor of my house.

Those numbnuts.

I thought the Air Force would be here after photos of my math lab had leaked online, eager to keep Naquadah a military secret.

But it must have been shared hundreds of times already, way too deep for covering up now, and definitely written out in dozens of theorist's boards by now in universities across the Globe.

Naquadah could solve humanities energy crisis for good in the right hands..

Permanently and safely.

But in the wrong ones, it could be weaponized, making nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles explode with thousands more kilotons of Force.

Stargate command had to scout us out.

So they sent the closest person in the know.

The Colonel, a MIT graduate and engineer himself, was under the impression he was meeting someone worthy of the high stress required for Stargate command.

A genius like Samantha Carter, Rodney McKay, or Daniel Jackson.

Sharp, well dressed, and with tolerable idiosyncrasies.

Instead at the door, he saw me.

Shirtless.

Smelling like booze.

With stains on my pants.

This must have been demoralizing.

Instead of meeting the next super genius he was reduced to looking after drunk physics department frat boys.

The irritation was palpable in the air like the smell of spices in a open air subtropical marketplace.

"Yeah okay." Howard said, closing the door slowly. "Let's set something up at Caltech this evening. I'll call you with the details later, right now I'm too hungover to deal with anything."

_That was close._

Howard leaned against the door looking at the wrecked living room.

A drip of sludge chose that precise moment to drop from the ceiling onto the still lit lamp conveniently positioned on a side table.

Landing on the bulb, it caused it to burn out with a soft muffled _pop._

_Well, that certainly could have gone better._

* * *

**Meanwhile**

**12 hours ago**

**Stargate Command, Cheyenne mountain**

* * *

"—Ma'am? You need to check this out."

Samantha Carter, recently appointed Captain of the starship _George Hammond_ was in briefing back at Stargate Command.

"What is it lieutenant?"

"The long term program you've had active for years has finally activated. Priority Red, Pasadena California."

"Long term program?" General O'Neal asked inquisitively, eyebrows raised.

The last project Sam got up to was modifying a sunlight engine that nearly went critical.

"What are you keeping from us Sam?"

Jack O'Neal, Samantha Carter, Senator Armstrong, and various other Bureaucrats were discussing the possible formation of an Off world base, solely dedicated to finding the secrets behind the Stargate's Final 9th Chevron.

A planet with a Naquadah core was found in the database of the city ship Atlantis. Cursory exploration had found the Stargate on its surface was modified only for outbound travel, resonating energy through the planetary core to do so.

Using a modified Dial Home Device, a Crystalline supercomputer build by the Ancients to both power and input Stargate coordinates, it would resonate energy through the planet's core, providing more power than all the ZPM's Stargate command had access to in order to dial the final chevron.

The project was a daring one. More secret than the Manhattan project, very few people were told of it's existence.

After all, Naquadah was a rare and precious resource.

A literal planet full of it was a game changer for any numerous enemy of Stargate Command. Mining it was usually done with small asteroids and meteors that landed on planets. Rarer still, asteroid mining if you were lucky enough to find it floating in the vastness of space.

A leak now could spark a arms race. One that would be very brief, and extremely fatal.

"Sir," Samantha began, "After the Asgard clone scare, a few years ago, I wrote a subroutine program that would constantly scan news, media outlets, and the web searching for any clues."

She shifted uncomfortably, and prepared to admit to something potentially career ending.

"After we got the Asgard core computers I've uploaded the program, and had it scan the entirety of the internet — dark web included."

"That's illegal Captain." O'Neal said. "It's a violation of all known privacy laws and worthy of being court martialed."

"Not quite Sir," Samantha said.

After years of it she was no stranger to skirting the technical legalities of the rules, "The Asgard core exclusively scanned for buzzwords. There was no violation of privacy otherwise."

"That's a very fine line of a technicality Captain," Senator Armstrong said, "It must have been for something important if you risked arrest in the process of doing so. Tell me, before I prepare to sink 2 billion dollars of my personal money into this Project - are we safe?"

Samantha looked over at the lieutenant who had brought the alert into the briefing room. "Let me find out Sir."

The soldier snapped into attention.

"Print our all the flagged documents, multiple copies for people here, and then start in depth probes into everyone involved. Sound the alert, code whistleblower alpha zeta 5."

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" The soldier saluted and strode out of the room.

* * *

**A hour later**

* * *

"This is remarkable, how did this guy skip through our net before?"

"It looks like he used words that didn't trigger the filter. It's either intentionally genius, or the most improbable coincidence ever."

The conference room was in disarray and chaos. Command has had a few close calls before, but most have been easy to contain. Various techs were confirming data back and forth. Hackers were called in to try to get some dirt on the guys, background probes were reopened. Psychiatrists were building character profiles from the database of raw information, doing assessments to determine threat levels.

Off in a corner stood General Jack O'Neal, flagging down Samantha to explain what in the damn hell was going on.

"So this guy," General O'Neal said, "if he's this smart why is he only on our radar now?"

"These showed up online." Samantha said, and pulled up dozens of photos from numerous Facebook, MySpace, and Reddit profiles. "They're too widespread, and have been shared and viewed by thousands of people. Universities in Sweden, Germany, Australia, Japan, Argenti—"

"— thanks Sam, I think I got the jist of it." Jack said. "So what is it?" He gestured toward the computer screen. "All I see are squiggles and numbers."

"I'll need to take a closer look, but from the jist of it that," Sam said gesturing towards a particularly equation dense part of the board, "it describes exactly how Naquadah forms and in the process breaks special relatively."

"This completely rewrites the known laws of quantum mechanics, Sir. Even McKay and I couldn't get it figured out."

"And that means?" He gestured with his hand theatrically, as if to say _and the point is?_

"Well," Samantha began, "it means if he passes the background checks he might be able to help on a lot of our long term projects Sir."

"Allright. Another egghead," Jack said resigned, more and more of them seemed to be added to various projects. And while Jack no longer viewed nerds in the same way he had years prior, from the looks of it, this Howard guy would be a poor fit in Command.

"I can deal with that. What about the other documents?"

"Not quite as remarkable mathematically, but still genius. Here look," She thrusted a pile of papers into Jack's hands, "this goes into exact detail on how we could use the antigravity generators to make a more secure base, and a blueprint for design ideas."

Jack flipped through a few pages, mildly interested.

Off planet satellite grid to scope out potential Stargate coordinates before blindly dialing, improved designs on starships, details of how using dirt bikes and all terrain vehicles that places from other gates could be explored easier—

"Sam?"

"Yes sir?"

Jack finished flipping and closed the folder for later reading . "Why haven't we been doing this since the very beginning?"

"Money sir."

"Ah yes," Jack said suddenly remembering how stingy bureaucrats were, "I almost forgot about Congress."

The room was still in turmoil, but progress was getting made. Sheldon's red flags from the army came up- how he couldn't keep a secret.

Rajesh was Indian, and as a non American citizen couldn't be easily brought into the Stargate program.

Leonard's ex defected to North Korea, flagging him as a high possibility mole in the process.

"Sir? These guys seem suspicious. What do you want to do?"

"Get someone out there to vet them in the morning." General O'Neal said. "It doesn't look like we have anything to worry about."

"Understood. I'll have someone from the Southern California branch drop by."

Samantha started inputting request into the terminal, searching for the few people who had the clearance to know of the Stargate project and were in the Southern California location.

"Oh and Sam?" Jack said.

"Yes sir?"

Jack opened the folder back up, tapping on the section with a blueprint for a base off world.

"This seems good, Double check it to see if there's any security flaws before implementing this in all our bases, starting with the new one- what's the name again?"

"It's still being voted on Sir," Sam said flipping through a short list, "there's a couple solid contenders, but the one most likely to win in my opinion is this one."

Tapping the spot on a clipboard she passed it over.

"The Icarus project." Jack said. "Sounds kinda ominous don't you think?"

* * *

**Howard's House**

**Seconds after closing the door**

* * *

_Okay, what the hell happened last night?_ I thought, leaning against the front door looking at the expansive wasteland that was my living room.

My memory got fuzzy sometime after the 12th round of selfies in the math lab with people offering congratulatory shots and drinks.

I should go upstairs and wake Raj, make sure he's okay, and then wake everyone else up and clear out the house.

A good plan.

It might give me time to reconstruct what I did in the last 12 hours.

Trudging into the kitchen, I stumbled around blindly looking for coffee. Random snapshots of last night were popping into my mind as the coffee percolated, bubbling and hissing.

Watching Sheldon sober up enough to realize what all the ruckus was about, come upstairs, and have a nervous breakdown. Disbelief that I was the one to solve it first, and discover a new branch of physics in the process.

Leslie passing out shots.

Raj waking up, sober enough to move, yet drunk enough to talk and reciting epic love poems.

The powerfuse blowing from everyone overloading the system.

Cops swinging by the neighborhood causing most people to flee and scatter.

And the remaining people playing strip Cards Against Humanities.

Which explained why most of us were in various stages of dressed.

And why Kripke was covered in sharpie graffiti.

Coffee going, Running it's cycle, I wandered into my master room, unlocking the door with a Victorian key. Old fashioned, I know, but much harder to break down.

I'd left it unlocked before and Leonard and Penny has sex on my bed. The sheets were in a disarray and pillows were on the floor.

Good thing there was nobody else here.

Locking the door and disrobing, peeling the food stained pants off me, I opened the door to the private attached master bathroom, ready to take a shower and start the day.

And saw a naked girl chained to the toilet.

Amy Farrah Fowler was nude.

She was leaning into the toilet, as one would when vomiting, but her hands were handcuffed through the S bend in the back. A breathable waffle mouth gag was strapped onto her face, drool dripping out of it, the occasional moan peeking through.

Her eyes were unfocused and wavering. A softly buzzing hitachi wand was attached to a robotic arm forcibly keeping it on her clit. Her once bushy pubes were trimmed with a beard clipper, leaving a manageable nest of soaked curls.

Grool dripped down her thighs and bright red handprints adorned her ass, the result of a serious spanking.

Handprints roughly my size.

Holy shit.

Lurching into action I turned the wand off, and unbuckled the mouth gag. The loss of stimulation, and constant ever present thrum of vibration disoriented Amy. For a second she came out of her trance.

"Amy! Amy? Are you okay?" Howard asked, holding her face with one hand in a effort to help snap back into reality. "Who did this to you?"

Amy blinked rapidly a couple times, still coming in and out of the trance. Licking her lips for moisture, she leaned into Howard's hand, making a content purring noise like a lap cat that's being pet by a octopus.

"I've been a good girl, just like you said Sir." She started licking my palm and fingers before shuttering, having a aftershock orgasm.

"You promised I'd get a reward If I could be a good girl." Amy said, looking at me with big hopeful eyes. A pleading expression in the crease of her forehead, the furrow of her eyebrows.

_Fuck. _

I've officially done it now.

And being naked was not helping my situation.

Amy, in cannon, was hinted to be really kinky.

She loved Sheldon spanking her as punishment for pretending being sick, was definitely a repressed bisexual, and had a interest in role play- even if it was only expressed through Star Trek doctor scenes.

Last night I showed the people of the party, and via the internet- the world, of a new branch of theoretical physics along with a solution to the world's energy problems.

Then everybody took ecstasy and played Strip Cards.

I was a flirt, Amy was emboldened, and when we started acting Kinky it seems to have escalated in a ever increasing spiral.

Which was why Amy was chained in my bathroom, rolling on molly, calling me her Dominant, and wanting some dick.

_Fuck._

I've officially done it now.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**A twist eh?**

**I've thought long and hard about what relationships pairings to make, and then decided:**

**No matter what I do, someone will hate it **

**So**

**I'll just write what I want to read**

**Which for those of you not in the know, isn't going to be a harem.**

**(1) they are terrible cliches and not the way real relationships works. I probably will do something poly, as that he more depth.**

**(2) I am a male bisexual. LGBT representation is something you don't see much of, so at some point that will be incorporated. Tastefully I hope**

**(3) the Stargate elements are fully coming out now. I'm pretty content with how things are progressing.**

**This chapter partially inspired by a request from Shinigamiluffy , they wanted to see from Stargate Commands point of view.**

**Gave me a good chance to experiment from writing in different perspectives, I hope I nailed it.**

**I do take requests of things to incorporate into the story as long as it vibes with my outline. In this case, later on I'm planning to have multiple character perspectives be more common. This was really great practice for that.**

**Thank you for everyone who's stuck with the story. I'm amazed that people actually read this thing, and enjoy it waiting for updates.**

**Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys and gals.**

**And, if it's not too much trouble, please leave some reviews!**

**What did you like/ didn't like? How's my formatting/ syntax/ character description and poise when it comes to imagery?**

**What would you like to see more of and that sorta thing.**

**Until then, **

**Cheers**


	15. Chapter 15

"Hop in the shower, I'll be in there in a moment to help you." Howard said.

This was fucked up.

Fifty shades of fucked up.

Like Christian Gray taking advantage of a virgin fucked up.

With quivering legs Amy looked up at me. "I don't think I can move right now." She said chuckling softly.

"Oo-kay," might as well go all in, "go ahead and sit on the bathmat."

"Yes Sir." Amy breathed heavily and shifted herself into a sitting position. She batted her eyes at me and reached out a hand. "Help me up?"

Uuuurgh.

It would be so easy to pick her up, get in the shower, and have passionate primal sex against the shower wall.

I should at least find out what happened between Amy and me beforehand.

"Hey, I'm going to step out and make sure everyone else is okay. Be back in a minute princess."

A giddy goofy smile appeared on Amy's face. "Mmmmmmmmmkay." She said stretching her arms sensually. "Be back soon."

* * *

**Meanwhile**

**In the Living room**

**Leonard's point of view **

* * *

Leonard was having the best dream he'd ever had.

Better than being captain of the enterprise.

More thrilling than getting into a gun fight with reavers on The _Firefly_.

Sexier and hotter than the masturbation sessions he had as a adolescent, ones intense enough to cause asthma attacks.

He was dreaming that he got together with Penny last night.

Everyone went to Howard's party. _Well_, party might be stretching it. Let's face it, Leonard knew he'd never be cool, he was a nerd, and proud of it.

But girls never went for nice nerds.

Not 'nice guys' like Ross in _Friends_, which acted superficially nice, but were really long term manipulative and liars.

So, Leonard was ready to spend a slow, somewhat awkward evening, trying to catch glimpses of Penny out of the corner of his eyes.

And then the party happened.

People just kept showing up—They wouldn't stop coming.

The physics department, geology, neurology, pharmacology. So many people, most eyeing Penny. Dressed in a Wonder Woman crop top, booty shorts shorter than the booty, she was the perfect representation of a 'festival slut'.

So when someone from the pharmacy department offered him anxiety medication he took it.

Leonard should have been paying attention.

'This will help with your anxiety' doesn't mean it's necessary anxiety meds. But ooooh boy!

Did it work.

Experimental ecstasy analog. Suddenly Leonard's anxiety was gone. He knew what to do.

Jumping behind the bar, using those long developed chemistry skills that come from mixing your own paint for DD miniatures Leonard started making finishes for drinks.

Fancy cut lemon rinds, masterfully salt and sugar rimmed glasses. Joking became easy, and with the anxiety gone, flirting became natural.

And did he flirt.

Behind the small bar, with the little space, Leonard jokes, laughed, and told humidors stories of previously traumatic things that happened in high school, but with such a twist that they seemed mature, and hilarious in hindsight.

And after getting into a shot for shot contest with Penny, it happened. They kissed.

Fireworks exploded between Leonard's ears. Grinding on Penny's ass amidst whooping and cheering this was the best party, and kiss Leonard ever had.

Then things got heated- and literally escalated into bedroom activity.

Wow.

What a dream, Leonard though shifting in a state of half sleep before realizing he wasn't sleeping alone.

He was on the floor.

Naked.

Spooning Penny.

One hand pinching a nipple, the other on her hip, and balls deep inside of her.

Penny was slowly waking up from the constant stimulation. She whimpered as Leonard's penis twitched inside of her.

She gasped aloud, and opened her eyes.

* * *

**Living room **

**Penny's point of view **

* * *

Fuuuuucck.

_This was a good sex dream_. I thought thrusting and shifting my back, riding a thick dick in my dream.

I haven't had sex since I broke up with Eddie for cheating.

Okay, so like, first thing- the party last night was bananas. I'm used to going to bars and getting hella drunk, but house parties are always more intense, and I didn't expect this party to live up to it.

Leonard, wearing a Batman T-shirt, and Sheldon wearing a Flash shirt picked me up from my apartment.

It was nice not to drive and save some gas money even if the ride was kinda awkward silent.

I liked Leonard.

Ok, so I haven't really met anyone like him, usually going for the tall hot type, but this nerdy cute vibe was really going for him when he wasn't anxious.

Bartending was hella fun. I was expecting to just get some practice in- but then people kept pouring in. It turned into a rave! Partying at one was fun, but bartending?

Turns out it was a nightmare.

I was getting flustered, there were so many people, and then Leonard hopped behind the bar to help me.

My god, that man.

It's like he instantly knew what to do. He made the finishes letting me get practice in mixing the drinks, he calmed the people who were getting antsy, even joked around.

"Hey, I'm Batman and you're Wonder Woman. Looks like it's a Just-us league of bartenders back here."

Corny puns.

Yet, endearingly sweet.

Don't know if it was what was going on in my life, or if he was just the sweetest guy ever, but I kissed him. And he kissed me back.

I don't know if it was the energy of the room or what, or if we just vibed easily, but he took my breath away.

We had to fuck. He got me soooo heated.

And the rest of the night's a blur.

I shifted a bit, feeling a warm comforting hand spoon me. Another on my hip pulled me close, and I felt the dick I was riding in dreamworld thrust into me deeper.

_Uuurgghhh._

Fuuuuck. He has a good dick too?

It's official, I'm keeping him.

"Morning lover." I moaned out, eyes still closed.

"Good morning Penelope." His husky voice whispered in my ear. Leonard chuckled from deep in his throat. "Although it's afternoon now."

"Mmmm…" Penny arched her back grinding more on the dick, "hopefully not too late- I need to work at 1:15."

"Uhhh… Penny? It's 12:15."

"What?!"

Crap.

I need to be ready a hour ago.

"Crap! Leonard! I need to go!"

* * *

**Living room**

**Kripke's point of view**

* * *

Urgh.

Why was I smelling marker?

Blearily Kripke opened his eyes, looked down, and saw a torso covered in sharpie graffiti.

_Very mature guys._

But who cares? Some sharpie doodles were a low price to poke fun at Sheldon. He was a ass, and the bane of parts of the physics department. Fucking with him was so much fun.

I came to the party last night just looking for a way to spend a Saturday. Being too rainy to go rock climbing with Bert, he tagged along. Might as well use the chance to fuck with Sheldon like Leslie suggested.

I had things planned. Water balloons, making him feel uncomfortable around people, and then Howard showed me the equations he'd worked out for a new element.

I was a genius.

But this stuff, this was light years ahead.

A new state of matter that breaks the known laws of quantum mechanics in the process?

Much less, a method for observing it via telescopes and potentially finding it in the cosmos via intense long distance cosmological exploration?

Even a modification that could be done to the Large Hadron Collider that could make a single atom of it for a picosecond, just long enough to prove it exists.

Hey, if I couldn't make this up, then at least it wasn't Sheldon. And we rubbed it in his face.

_That was so much fun_.

I should probably get back home and shower though. Maybe even—

"— Crap! Leonard! I need to go!" Penny suddenly shouted.

"Okay! Okay. Ughhh.. gimme a second." Leonard said. I could hear the sounds of him hurryingly getting dressed behind the couch.

"Sheldon." Leonard was shaking him. "Sheldon! Sheldon wake up."

"He won't wake up," Kripke said sitting up blearingly rubbing his eyes. "He's still drunk."

Leonard swore under his breath before looking at me.

"Heeeeyy," Leonard suddenly said, "Kripke!"

"Save it, ill help you."

"Which half do you want?"

"I'll take the legs. He's drooling a lot."

"What are you guys doing?" Penny said, walking by dressed in her costume from yesterday.

"We're going to drag Sheldon into the backseat of the car." Leonard said before turning to Kripke. "Feel free to drop him a couple times by the way. He acted like a complete and total ass last night."

* * *

**Living room **

**Howard's point of view **

* * *

"Hey, so guys I—" Howard rounded the corner, relocking the bedroom door behind him, ready to wake everyone passed out on the floor.

To his surprise they were mostly awake.

"— ….why are you dragging Sheldon?"

"He was a ass." Leonard said. "Plus Penny has to get to work, and I want a shower after sleeping on the floor."

"Valid point. Okay so quick before I go, some guy from the air force wants to meet with us later today about some top secret project."

"Weally?" Kripke said. "When did twis happwen?"

"About 20 minutes ago actually- I think they mainly want me but they've asked to assemble my team, whatever that means."

Howard suddenly had a thought.

"Hey Kripke! You should come too. Sheldon was super pissed last night and we could use you for when he flakes."

Kripke thought over it for a minute. Some super secret project with the military immediately after new paradigm shifting math was introduced to the world?

Yeah.

That sounds like some Manhattan Project Shit.

"Sure. Sounds good. Count me in." Kripke said as he headed to the door dragging Sheldon outside. Penny was holding the front door open.

"Alright see you later guys!" Howard shouted on the driveway. "Wait, wait - who else is inside?"

"I think it's just Leslie and Raj!" Penny shouted, opening the car door and helping shove Sheldon in before bucking him into the backseat.

With a loud squeal of tires Leonard, Sheldon, Kripke, and Penny pulled out.

Just Leslie and Raj inside.

Okay.

I could handle that.

Closing the door, Howard glanced over the living room again. It was still a mess, but nothing too bad was broken other than a few small holes in the drywall.

Leslie's asleep shirtless here, so Raj should be upstairs. I should wake her first before trying to wake the brick that is Raj.

"Leslie. Pssst hey, Leslie." Howard said shaking her shoulder. Leslie woke up with a groan, stretching awake, taking off her glasses and rubbing her face.

"Mmmm…. morning dumbass." She said.

Thank goodness. Things were normal with her.

"That was a hell of a foursome last night," Leslie said, "best one I've ever had."

Wait.

A Foursome?

"My memory is hazy and coming back in fragments. Remind he what happened again."

Leslie gazed at Howard, putting her glasses back on and searching for a spark of recognition.

"There was you, me," Okay. unexpected but not bad, "Amy Farrah Fowler, and Rajesh Koothrappali."

Raj?

"Now come on." Leslie said taking her Bra off and dropping it on the couch. "I wanna fuck in the showers after punishing Amy and Raj again."

She shimmied out of her jeans, and discarded them, kicked it away onto a sizable ever growing pile of her clothes.

"You get Amy warmed up for me." Leslie said. "I'll get Rajesh downstairs."

What the fuck was going on?

"Hey Howard?" Leslie said looking back over her shoulder. Standing by the foot of the stairs, the sun was streaming in through the windows, reflecting of her pale skin.

Perky small nipples poked out on her chest and her lacy black panties ruffled in the breeze of cold air jutting from the AC.

"Yes Leslie?"

"Thanks for being a gentleman. You know, that was the first Bi playscene I had where I didn't feel like shit after." Leslie twirled a strand of hair absently. "Would you maybe want to do it again?" She said hopefully.

I didn't know that.

"You're welcome Leslie. And sure, I'd love to" Howard said grinning.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

… **thoughts?**

**Please leave some reviews, it motivates me to write when I see them. **

**I'm experimenting more with various points of view, trying to see how that goes.**


	16. Chapter 16

Raj's moans were the hottest.

He was pressed up against the wall of the shower, moaning, while Leslie gave him a tantalizingly slow soapy handjob.

It was such a good idea to renovate the showers. With two shower heads on separate walls and a bench on the wall between it, the shower was big enough for five people.

Or in this case, four.

Leslie was a bonafide Dominatrix.

Average in stature, small perky breasts, smooth sinuous tight muscles packed her frame.

Bending down she ran her nails tantalizingly along Raj's leg, core muscles flexing, belly piercing glistened in the bright artificial light of the bathroom. Water cascaded down her form drizzled like ice off a sharp glacier waterfall.

"You like that, huh? Twink motherfucker?"

Damn.

And did she have a mouth.

Raj was moaning uncontrollably and frantically trying to keep his hands against the wall.

"Yeah, you do. You're a good little boy, aren't you? Do you like watching Howard fuck when I jack you off?"

Raj looked around in panic, like a deer on a winding country road at night, caught in the headlights. Moving his hand away from the wall Leslie slapped it back with a loud snap.

"No. Bad boy." Leslie forced his hand back in contact will the cool tile wall, and then flicked his testicle. "Remember the rules. No contact, and no cumming until I say so."

Amy, on the other hand was a complete and total submissive.

On the bench, hands pressed into the wall rolling and tugging her hair. Mouth open, eyes closed, moaning into Howard's mouth.

Howard was two digits deep fingering Amy. Curling his fingers, lightly rubbing her G-spot, thumb idly brushing her anus causing loud gasps with fluttering eyes.

Over the sound of water flowing and Raj's moaning, the slick wet sound of sex filled the air, like stirring good Mac and cheese.

She was soaking wet, still rolling, pulling her nipples taut eyeing Leslie.

"Mistress, please." Amy moaned, desperate for more stimulation. "Let me eat your pussy."

Wow.

Was this really my life now?

What did I do to deserve this?

* * *

**In Leonard's car**

**Sheldon's perspective **

* * *

Wow.

Was this really my life now?

What did I do to deserve this?

Sheldon woke up, the car hitting a particularly strong bump.

"Danger! Danger!" Sheldon shouted, waking up from a horrible dream. Wolowitz has discovered a new element, form of matter, and perception of what gravity truly was.

Blinking the sleep out of his eyes Sheldon rapidly realized two things.

One, and perhaps most immediately important, he was not in his spot.

Instead of the front passenger seat where he belonged, Sheldon was uncomfortably shunted in the backseat.

With Kripke of all people.

Not his mortal enemy, of which many existed, most notably Wil Wheaton, but a sore in his side nonetheless.

Two, last night wasn't a nightmare.

It actually happened.

Howard Wolowitz discovered a new phase of matter, element, and broadened the horizons of quantum mechanics in one fell swoop.

And in the same swoop, crashed and burned all Sheldon's dreams.

Like a grainy film camera disintegrating in the radioactive aftermath of Chernobyl, the paradigm shift realization stuck. Like a tree falling in a suburban neighborhood park. If this element exists, even minutely—

— then Howard became the father of fusion energy, the person who would make warp drive possible, and last but not least; the genius of the scientific generation.

This was it.

The beginning of the end.

Why would history remember me under these conditions?

Unless some accomplishments happened soon, something to surpass this new discovery without a shadow of a doubt, I'd be just another scientist—lost in the sands of time.

This would not do.

This would not be.

This would not stand.

I had to be the one remembered in future history books with a shiny award.

Me.

Not Howard.

Me.

Not any of the other idiot-no good-bumbling-discover something by accident scientists.

Me.

Sheldon Lee Cooper.

Because seriously, of all people?

Wolowitz?

The man was a dolt.

No PhD, a engineer for god's sake, his job was basically a slightly more competent handyman. Useful only for basic tasks and duties, working at the whim and call of the physics department.

How in the blazes of all the fires of Mordor did he accomplish this?

"Oh hey, you're awake." Leonard said. "Fun night eh?"

Leonard reached over and grasped Penny's hand, giving it a firm squeeze.

Honestly, the mating rituals most humans went through. This was repulsive, unnecessary, and a complete eyesore. Not to mention baffling and a bore.

How dare he be happy?

Didn't Leonard know by now that _I'm_ the most important person in this vehicle.

The audacity of this bitch.

Sheer sheep headed stupidity.

"No it wasn't a fun night," Sheldon said sullenly, "in fact it was a nightmare."

Leonard and Kripke made eye contact through the rearview mirror. Sheldon was animated, manic, a complete spaz of a mess. Like a animal backed up to a wall, Sheldon was dangerously unpredictable.

"What- what exactly was a nightmare?" Leonard said.

"Everything." Sheldon said sullenly.

Silence descended on the car. Aside from the sound of Penny texting, idle running, and the background sounds of road, it was silent.

Awkwardly so.

"Well, this is wakward guys." Kripke said. "How about we do sometwing elswe?"

* * *

**In the Wolowitz kitchen**

**Howard's perspective**

* * *

Everyone was dressed, sitting in the kitchen, drinking slightly burnt coffee from staying in the heating element so long.

No one talked.

Amy kept taking small sips, glancing at Leslie out of the corner of her eyes. A dreamy smile on her face hidden by the cup.

Leslie was tiredly sitting, idly stirring her cup with a spoon, occasionally taking large gulps. Time from time she would eye Raj with a predatory grin causing him to blush.

Howard was on his second cup of coffee, alternating glances between everyone at the table.

"Sooooo…. are we going to talk about what happened?" Howard said.

Raj opened his mouth, and wasn't able to talk. Selective Mutism is a pain.

Howard stood up and grabbed some baileys from the fridge. Raj held up his cup hopefully while Howard posted a shot in. Double glancing between the cup, and Howard, Raj's eyebrows curved upwards, begging for more.

"Tell me when to stop." Howard said pouring more baileys.

"Yeah sooo… that happened." Amy said red in the face. "I liked this very much, you know, they've been many successful polyamorous relationships in past, especially non European centric societies."

Raj swallowed a large gulp of liquor laced coffee. "Is that what we're doing? All dating?"

"I honestly don't know," Howard said, "Raj? You're my best friend. I don't want things to be awkward between us."

"Awwww." Amy said leaning her head on Leslie's shoulder. Leslie peered at her for a second, then shrugged and allowed Amy to continue. Idly with one hand she pulled her stool close and wrapped her hand around Amy's waist.

"Same here Howard. I think I've had these feelings for a really long time." Raj said.

God this was anxiety provoking.

"Hey, why don't we all just, like, tentatively poke around and try things out as they go along?" Leslie said. "I've always wanted to be in a group relationship."

"Mmm-kay."

"I'm down."

"Sure. We can start a group message text and sync our calendars later." Howard said. "Oh! But before that, someone from the military takes to me this morning. I was wondering if you wanted to hear my proposal."

* * *

**Meanwhile**

**Sheldon and Leonard's apartment**

* * *

"Sheldon. Sheldon!" Leonard shouted.

"What? I heard you the first time."

"I was wondering if you wanted to hear a proposal?" Leonard said.

Sheldon was redoing the math he'd seen last night, desperately trying to find some problem or hole in the physics.

He hadn't.

Sheldon was redoing the equations for the twelfth time, bouncing between all the whiteboards the apartment had available, and in periods of downtime trying to input information into his laptop, to computer stimulate if Naquadah was even possible.

"Find anything new?" Leonard asked Sheldon. Kripke was showering, attempting to wash all the marker doodles off his body.

"No." Sheldon slumped glumly, placing his marker down. "Absolutely nothing."

Leonard came closer to the boards, eyeing a particularly hurried equation dense section.

"Well what's this then?"

"More proof it exists, and the sheer statistics of chemical composition."

Sheldon, in a effort to prove Naquadah false had went deep into the math of its atomic makeup. Such a large molecule had no right to exist, it was bigger than everything at the bottom of the periodic table! All the elements there decayed in microseconds.

But, alas, the math spoke for itself.

Somehow more stable than anything else, Naquadah had a ridiculously high melting point. It's melting point was higher than its shear factor.

Side note- that's why it's easier to have something like liquid Naquadah powering weapons instead of solid cores. A staff weapon is much easier to make than the even the mold of a Stargate. Solid Naquadah is a trademark of a higher grade space faring civilization.

It was so dense with a positive core, Naquadah was incapable of rusting, just like gold. It's unique properties also made it at room temperature superconductor.

All the math didn't help Sheldon's mood. Everything he tried to poke holes in, solidified it just that much more.

Might as well see what Leonard has to say.

"What? What do you want to do." Sheldon said, rocking slightly, in the beginning stages of a panic attack.

"Howard texted me," Leonard said checking his phone, "the meeting place is going to be the Caltech physics lab. Are you still up for it?"

"No." Sheldon said crossing his arms. "I'm not going."

"Suit yourself," Leonard said, "we're going to leave in a hour then."

Wait.

Leave in a hour?

For some top secret military project?

"Leonard I've changed my mind."

"Oh yeah?" Leonard asked, getting a few things together. "Why'd you do that all of a sudden?"

"I'm instigating the body snatchers cause in the roommate agreement. This math is too complex for Howard to have invented by himself." Sheldon said with conviction.

"Mmmkay. . ." Leonard said unconvinced. "So what do you want to do?"

"We're going to expose him in front of the military," Sheldon said, plan already forming in mind, "and prove what a fraud he is."

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**Sooooo yeah. Must have rewritten this multiple times until I felt comfortable with the final-ish version.**

**I'm straight up expecting hate for making my version of the characters bisexual.**

**But, I'm writing for me- and the couple of people who like my fic. **

**Please leave some reviews. If you have something negative to say, as long as it's not "hurr durr I don't like Raj and Howard having gay relationships, make Howard a stud and have a harem of 827482992738490398 women."**

**If you **_**do**_ **like how the fic is going, gimme some feedback! Tips with how you'd like relationship dynamics, or how the split multiple perspective goes, that sort of thing.**

**Kudos**


	17. Chapter 17

"He's a fraud! A bodysnatcher! An Alien! They're all aliens!" Sheldon shrieked hysterically.

Leonard just put his face in his palms muttering under his breath,shaking his inhaler. "Why did I think this was a good idea."

"Excuse me?" Colonel Richard said. "What was that you said Son?"

We were in the Caltech physics department lab. Specifically, Howard's lab, as he'd cleaned up and made space. Both Leslie's and Leonard's labs were full of lasers and mirrors, and Sheldon wasn't around so Howard's lab it was.

Half the group had come. The four of us, being Raj and me, Leslie and Amy were waiting around for the other to show up. Kripke was parking the car, Sheldon meanwhile had sprinted inside the second he saw the parking lot, with Leonard chasing after him.

Asthmatic Leonard who was shorter.

And slower.

Who wasn't watching Sheldon sprint away, intent on causing trouble.

Needless to say, Sheldon had busted the door down like the kool-aid man and started sprouting trouble. All the trouble and manner of nonsense his brain could concoct.

All in a effort to screw me over, and thus be the center of attention again.

Why, why on earth, did I think it was a good idea to invite a Sheldon hysterical at being surpassed?

"Hey relax Sheldon." Howard spoke, trying in vain to calm him down from the throes of a panic attack. "I'm not an alien or bodysnatcher or anything like that. In fact, I'm willing to prove it medically."

"That's convenient." The Colonel said. "Before we get any further you need to go through medical and psychological testing."

Psychological testing?

Perfect.

Time to run it in Sheldon's face.

He had lost our bet, and thus was required to get tested for insanity and mental conditions again. And who better to do it than the military who suddenly thought we could be goa'uld sleeper agents?

"Can we do a full profile?" Howard asked. "See, part of the bet this guy and I had discovering a new element was that if he lost— he had to get rigorous psychological testing."

Leonard has recovered enough with the help of his trusty inhaler. Reaching out he grabbed Sheldon in a full suplex, holding him in place while Sheldon waved and ranted uncontrollably.

"Psychological testing?" Colonel Richard said looking at Sheldon, damn near foaming in the mouth from self induced rage. "Gee, you think he needs it?"

"Ppfftt." Leslie laughed, cackling softly. "Good one."

"That is indeed a good joke," Amy said looking at Sheldon and speaking in a even, if somewhat pissed off tone, "as the way this man is behaving psychological issues seem fairly evident and self explanatory."

"Allright!" The colonel said, "Perfect. Because Swat is already on the way."

Well, there goes any chance of Amy liking Sheldon out the window. I wonder what he did? Something stupid I'm sure.

Wait, I spaced out again.

Hold up.

"Swat?" Howard asked.

"Yeah, you didn't think I'd be meeting with potential terrorists without backup did you?"

The power was killed to the building. It being the afternoon, sunlight should be shimmering through the windows, illuminating the suspended dust motes in the air.

Unfortunately, Howard's lab was deep in the guts of the building. With no windows it was as dark as a cave full of blind fishes.

The door was kicked down, and before I knew it, red laser dots had appeared on everyone's torso. With the sound of hissing air tranquilizer darts suddenly sprouted, like daisy's in the spring.

Hanging onto consciousness like a dog trying to bite the rain Howard slid under. But not without hearing the colonels parting words.

"Bag em, take them to the black site for testing."

* * *

**Black site**

**Colonel Richard's perspective **

* * *

We were at a undisclosed location, somewhere In the vicinity of California. Transporting these people would be too risky without prior testing.

The goa'uld, shapeshifter aliens, replicators, wraith, and God knows what else were a risk.

Everyone within 20 clicks of cheyenne mountain had to be vetted under the highest levels of scrutiny.

It would be much easier if Stargate Command had figured out how to make more of the Asgard Computer cores. Apparently they had been hardwired to remain in the ships instead of being removed and being served as a manufacturing plant.

Cheeky buggers.

"Give them a IV of anesthesia and then start running tests, I want a full physical and chemical workout before we wake them up!"

"Sir, yes sir!" Various grunts shouted, moving equipment and handcuffed body bags in place.

"Now then," the colonel muttered, "let's see what we have."

* * *

**The next morning**

**Leonard's perspective **

* * *

That's it.

I'm going to kill him.

I'm going to kill Sheldon if the military doesn't do it first.

Leonard had woken up, sore and woozy, handcuffed to a hospital bed.

It was all Sheldon's fault. Speaking of which - where was he and everyone else? There were curtains separating his cot. As if he were in a open bay room. Various electronics and monsters beeped.

"Hello?" Leonard said. "Hello! Is anyone there?"

* * *

**Howard's perspective**

* * *

Urgh.

Why does everything hurt?

"Hello?" A voice asked far away, echoing slowly in the cave that was my cranium.

Wait —I know that voice.

Leonard?

"Hello! Is anyone there?"

"Mmlroooolpp." Howard mumbled. That was bad, worse than a hungover dwarf.

Maybe rubbing his face and getting a glass of water would help. Howard moved his hand and it jerked. Handcuffs?

What was going on?

Jerking to alertness and blinking the sleep drowsy away Howard spoke. "I'm here Leonard! . . .and handcuffed from the looks of it."

"Me too!" Raj shouted behind another curtain. "Hey has anyone seen Leslie?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure Kripke is snoring the next bed over." Shouted Leonard. "I'm going to kill Sheldon for getting us in this mess." He swore.

"Let's just find out how bad this is first." Howard said. "Maybe they'll do it for us."

Everything was silent for a moment apart from the noise of air conditioning humming through the vents, curtains flapping, and electrical monitors beeping. Then, a door squealed open.

"Ahh you're awake." Some unidentified Doctor said. "Come on, let's get you into something more comfortable and into psych evaluation before meeting up in the conference room. "

* * *

**Conference room**

**Some time later**

* * *

"For starters, apologies." Colonel Richard said. "We had to make sure everything was cleared, and you guys are high risk."

"Were such extreme measures really necessary?" Leslie asked.

"Well, you have to understand where I'm coming from." Colonel Richard said. " is flagged as a possible North Korea sympathise, Wolowitz has destroyed and abused government property, Cooper is flagged from trying to buy uranium from foreign dictators. We simply had no choice."

That's. . . a fair point. Even if it ended up with us all tranquilized.

We were sitting around a circular conference table, somewhere underground in a bunker. Everyone except Sheldon was here. On one side stood the Colonel. Raj, Howard, Leslie, and Amy sat clustered together. Leonard and Kripke sat aside. Kripke was still recovering from anesthesia. Some people just don't have such a fast recovery time.

We were in the mountains maybe? Or the desert? There really wasn't anyway to tell. Everything was industrial and without identifying marks.

"You'll be happy to know that you all cleared the medical and psychological testing. Well except Mr. Cooper. That's the good news" The colonel said.

"What's the bad news then?" Amy asked.

"There were some anomalies in your medical reports." The colonel passed out a thick folder to everyone and knocked on the door.

"I'll give you some time to review it before bringing the doctors in." And with that, Colonel Richards stepped out of the room.

The sound of flipping folders and turning pages filled the room.

"Huh, possible glaucoma." Said Leonard. "What do you have?"

"Allergies according to this bloodwork." Leslie said.

".. cancer."

"What?!" Everyone turned to Howard. Amy yanked the folder out of his hands and hyper skimmed it.

"He's . . . Right." Amy said defeated. "Brain cancer, thousands of micro tumors all over the brain."

"Are you sure?" Leslie asked.

"I'm a neurologist." Amy said. "Of course I'm sure."

"Well what does this mean?" Said Raj.

"Did they do a X-ray when you had your accident Howard?" Amy asked.

"Huh? Oh yeah, yeah they did. ." Howard replied. This was a lot to process, but it would explain the constant headaches.

Amy was muttering under her breath, doing calculations on the growth rate and thinking of possible treatment plans.

"All this growth in a month… multiplied by the growth rate of neuron cells… 5 months? No wait sixteen..Eight?"

Amy paused.

"I don't know. There's too many factors and it depends on how the spread rate it. But look at this." She said tapping part of a MRI and X-ray scan. "You're having calcification on the synapse point and grey matter. It could slow down, but given the rate it doesn't seem likely."

"Howard… I'm sorry. It's terminal."

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**Very late edit. My bad, the authors note didn't get uploaded.**

**For those interested- Howard does NOT have cancer.**

** It just appears that way. **

**More details will be in place for the next chapter which im currently working on. **


	18. Chapter 18

Amy Farrah Fowler knew lots of things.

She knew that Seventy two hours ago, while eating tuna salad in her lab all alone for the umptenth time that suicide was starting to seem like a pretty good alternative to the crushing ever present loneliness.

That Forty eight hours ago, a acquaintance invited her to a party, and on a whim and a whimsy Amy decided to try one last time to connect to people.

That Twenty four hours ago, a very rude but attractive tall stranger named Sheldon belittled and rejected her, laughing at the entire field of neurobiology, and calling her a sham- Amy was almost ready to give up.

Twenty three hours, fifty five minutes, and fourteen seconds ago Amy was prepared to give up. To commit suicide. No one, not one person would ever truly want her.

And then suddenly and completely things changed.

Twenty tree hours & forty two minutes ago, after taking a large amount of experimental ecstasy she meet him. The center of the parties attention.

Howard Wolowitz.

Not tall, nor suave, or buff, nor a poster boy by any stretch of the imagination.

But kind.

So very, very kind.

Two minutes afterward she met her.

Leslie Winkle.

Sexy, witty, curly hair that went for days and with eyes so sharp that the thick glasses rim couldn't dull them in the slightest.

When the drugs kicked in, affecting her rational decision making abilities, Howard prevented her leaving with sketchy guys.

When she cried, he got her a blanket.

When the power died, and cop sirens were heard - he protected her and helped her hide in his bedroom while the rest of the crowd scattered.

When Howard had to leave to break the more rowdy members up, Leslie was there.

When Amy cried, she pet her hair.

When panic set in, Leslie calmed her down. And when she leaned over for a kiss-

-Leslie kissed her back.

Fully.

Unashamed.

Oh, Amy knew things. Particularly about the brain- its components, how it functioned, the way numerous systems interacted in a complex web of events microseconds in the making.

Amy Farrah Fowler did not know about love.

Feelings.

Emotions.

The ethereal stuff that philosophers have sprouted for centuries, inventing new words that were unable to explain the entirety of the concept.

The fuzzy feeling you get when someone sticks their neck out on the line for you, simply to make sure that you are safe and protected without a ulterior motive. Trust. A safe space for when the world gets too loud, big, and scary.

Amy didn't know if she was in love, however she did like Howard.

More than halfway, even with her half understanding the halfway muddled mess that was her heart.

Half of the time she struggled to feel anything at all, the other half everything felt so raw it was like walking around in a mallet factory made of glass.

Half her being yearned for Leslie.

To feel her hand on her cheek.

To be a good girl.

Two hours ago, Amy decided that as long as she lived, she would try this relationship out. With Howard and Leslie, Amy had found home.

Which was why the following news was so worrisome.

Two minutes ago, Amy found out that Howard had brain cancer. He was going to die.

However - there was much that Amy did not know.

Things she couldn't.

Things that were classified and forgotten in the sands of time.

Only a Shadow, of a Whisper, of a Glimpse, of a Vision was even visible today. Hidden in the Genome of humanity the legacy of the Ancients was alive.

A race of protohuman.

Or rather the original human.

Millions of years ago there existed a race of highly evolved human beings. Fleeing their home galaxy due to religious conflict and strife they made their home on earth. These beings were superhuman, later in their evolution able to utilize 100% of their brain and able to do feats some would consider magic.

To move objects with their mind.

To heal and shoot energy bolts with their will.

To shoot fire from their palms.

So smart, the secrets of the universe became theirs.

Eventually this race transcended the limits of mortality and became beings of pure energy. Of quantized light, on another plane of existence.

Stargate Command knew that they accomplished this by using 100% of their brain.

However, they were wrong, and were missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

After all - people already are using 100% of their brain. Otherwise there would be no need for it? Redundant systems do exist at times due to flukes in biology, however most of the time evolution is a mean Mistress.

If 100% of the brain was used all at once, you would seize up in a stroke and die.

Evolutionary, systems just get added on top of one another. The monkey brain goes over the reptile brain. The conscious mind goes above the monkey. Yes, there are parts of the brain that aren't utilized all the time, but the brain was like a roadmap. A small winding country road can't handle a highway full of cars.

The needs of the environment serve what will stay.

Just like how Homo Sapien and Homo Erectus evolved in different evolutionary lines due to environmental conditions so did the Ancients.

And the Ancients, the Ancients evolved with Stargates.

Ahh, the Stargate.

A extremely complicated device that utilized the laws of the Universe for one very simple, albeit energy intensive, purpose. To link two regions of spacetime together via a einstein roosevelt bridge.

A wormhole traversing through another dimension.

Not instantaneous travel no, but much much faster than the generation ship their kind had set sail on from the Original galaxy. By using Naquadah to magnify a quantumly entangled region of space together, a person or object could travel along the corridor disassembled into atomic components as pure energy, only to be reassembled whole on the other side.

Using the Gate was not risk free.

Small ones, risks and side effects that didn't show up until generations later. By being disassembled and having your consciousness spend a brief moment in a higher dimension the body, ever so slowly, followed suit.

It took thousands of years- but eventually the Ancients physical forms started ever so slowly resembling the hardware and guts of the gate itself.

Crystalline quantum supercomputers which operate partway in a higher dimension.

Small crystals formed on the synapse points, able to hold more memory than typical neurons. Generations of gate travel had the crystal growth permeate the entirety of the brain and neural systems.

From storing more information, to running more efficiently, to becoming a quantum system, the ancients consciousness became dense enough to imprint itself into the fabric of the universe. And in doing do Ascend to another plane of existence.

And so, a fundamental niversal truth become known.

Ascension is available to everybody.

Everybody who can get their synapses and soul aligned as one. Anyone who has enough neural density to develop a consciousness sufficiently advanced enough.

Amy did not know that is what Howards was experiencing.

His synapses, neurons, and interconnecting neural tissue was becoming a organic crystal. One that utilized the laws of Quantum Mechanics. Able to think multiple thoughts at the same time, to process things at a much faster rate than humanly possible to, and when a tipping point was hit- to interface with the background forces of reality and turn them on its head.

From the outside perspective Howard had thousands of untreatable microtumors. Ones that would spread, ones that were terminal.

Perhaps the stroke of genius he had was the ramblings of a feeble mind? Delusions caused by insanity and crackly connections.

Howard knew what was happening.

His intellect grew in leaps and bounds. One day he was struggling with classical Newtonian physics, the next analyzing Naquadah and formulating how to build a quantum supercomputer.

But Amy did not know.

All Amy knew, was her new friend and lover had terminal cancer.

However, Amy wouldn't give up without trying.

* * *

**Authors note:**

* * *

**Short, but I wanted to get this out before anymore people got upset that 'Howard was dying'**

**I've got finals coming up soon, so the next update will be a bit.**

**What do you think about my theory of the ancients brains? It seems to make sense, and in a way satisfies Cannon knowledge.**

**Please leave a review if you have time. I'd really appreciate it as reading them motivates me to work in the following chapters. **

**I mean— I'll write it either way, but I'm more motivated to do it knowing people want a update.**

**Till next time,**

**Kudos**


End file.
